Streets of Toronto
by Stefan422
Summary: Mr. X has moved The Syndicate's operations from Wood Oak City to Toronto, Canada for reasons unknown. Meanwhile, the League of Evil Exes has somehow fully reformed, and is bent on exacting revenge on Scott. Alliances old and new will be formed, battles will be fought, but who will come out on top? Takes place after the events of Streets of Rage Remake, & book 6 of the SP series.
1. Chapter 1

_(Disclaimer: Streets of Rage is owned by SEGA, and Scott Pilgrim is owned by Bryan Lee O'Malley/Oni Press.)_

* * *

-PREFACE-

As a fan of both Streets of Rage and Scott Pilgrim, I knew it would be far beyond awesome if there was ever a crossover between them, as they are my favorite comic book and videogame series' respectively. Unfortunately, there weren't any, so I decided to write my own. This is my imagining of what the merging of the two urban fantasy universes would be like. I will be mixing both the grittiness and darkness of the Streets of Rage universe as well as the quirkiness of the Scott Pilgrim universe to build the atmosphere for this story, as well as keeping everyone (from both sides) in character. Enjoy!

* * *

 **Streets of Toronto**

 **Chapter One**

Wood Oak City. A fine city located in the country of Lima. Cars and people hustled and bustled, the roads and walkways were beautifully exotic-looking, and the sunsets were something to behold. In the past, it was an ordinary, happy, and peaceful city. Until, a crime lord known as Mr. X had acquired a powerful grip on the city, effectively taking complete control of it. As a result of this, the city quickly turned into a cesspool of crime and violence. Robberies, beatings—it seemed as though no one was safe from the filth spread by Mr. X's syndicate.

Blaze Fielding cruised down the road, a smile set upon her features. She, along with two of her best friends, Axel Stone and Adam Hunter, were brave ex-cops that had long turned in their badges, having been sick of being on the city's police force, which had been corrupted at the time. The three weren't corrupt cops themselves, however. In fact, they were the only good cops on the force. But with no badges, there was only one other way to cleanse the city of the filth that _was_ The Syndicate.

Going vigilante.

And they opted to go about it this way. Knowing exactly what they were getting into, Blaze, Axel, and Adam took to the streets, now with the freedom to get rid of the thugs themselves. They fought hard—between Blaze's masterful Judo techniques, Adam's expert Boxing abilities, and Axel's extensive 'Martial Arts' skills, the trio fought their way to Syndicate HQ, where they laid waste to Mr. X himself, marking the end of the bad spell of the city—or so they thought. Things were peaceful for about a year, before he returned, somehow alive. This pattern would continue a number of times, but fortunately within those times, they had expanded their team in the form of Max Thunder, Axel's good friend, Sammy (Skate), Adam's kid brother, and Dr. Gilbert Zan, an ex-RoboCy scientist, now against Mr. X.

Blaze happily sighed, glad to be able to let her guard down. And this time, it appeared that it would finally get to stay down. It was again, about a year since X had been dead, and there had been no signs of him returning. No crime, no senseless violence, even the police force was still clean and honest. They had finally done it, and as the setting sun bestowed its golden rays upon the street, Blaze was planning how to relax. Perhaps her and her team could just spend time together enjoying what the city had to offer? Definitely. But she was tired on this evening, and rightfully so. She'd been overworked at her current job as a Private Investigator, looking into three alleged cases on cheating spouses and two child custody cases. So for tonight, she figured she'd just kick back on the couch with a drink. Yep, that sounded good. Just as she pulled up to her house, her phone rang, rattling inside the console. She looked at the caller ID, and seeing it was from Murphy, she smiled and answered the call.

"Hey, Murphy," Blaze greeted tiredly, yet pleasantly. As Murphy spoke to Blaze, her eyes slowly widened with his words. She pressed the phone closer to her ear, listening intently as thoughts raced through her head.

"Okay, thanks, Murphy." She said finally, hanging up the phone with that determined look in her pretty brown eyes, no longer tired. She then scrolled through her _Contacts_ , intent on making a call herself. Once she found the desired number, she pressed _dial_. She held the phone to her ear, her facial expression unchanging as it rang several times before the person on the other end picked up.

"Hello, Blaze."

"Hi, Zan, I need you to be at my place _ASAP_. . .and tell the others to do the same." She spoke hurriedly into the phone.

* * *

 _ **Not much later. . .**_

Inside the house, Blaze, the house's owner, Zan, Axel, Adam, Skate and Max were all present, and seated on the couches in Blaze's house.

"What's going on, Blaze?" Axel asked the brunette directly.

"Yeah, Zan said it was urgent!" Skate jumped in, wanting to know what could possibly be the issue, now that their nemesis was assumed to be finished.

" _Don't tell me. . ._ " Adam started, before being cut off by Blaze with a silent nod and a knowing look.

"Yeah. X is back." Blaze informed. The news came something of a shock to everybody. They had been so _sure_ that X was out of the picture for good this time."

"What? I thought he was down for the count!" Axel growled, his anger rising. He was really getting tired of this from X. It seemed that no matter what, he would always be able to somehow come back from the grave.

"That's not all, though," Blaze continued, causing them all to give her questioning looks. She continued speaking. "He's apparently moved his operations to Toronto, Canada."

" _Toronto?_ " Max repeated.

"Why would he do _that?_ I mean, what's the point of moving The Syndicate all the way up to the north pole?" Skate quipped, though his tone did reflect genuine curiosity regarding X's latest relocation.

"It appears that he is learning from his mistakes. He has grown tired of constantly being defeated by us here, so he is choosing to target Toronto, a defenseless city, where there are no heroes to stop him." Zan inferred. Blaze nodded.

"That man is so power-hungry, it's sickening." Adam said, crossing his strong arms with a deep frown.

Blaze looked at her team. "Are you guys thinking what I'm thinking?"

"We all hop on the next flight to Toronto and kill the bastard?" Max said, inviting a battle-ready smirk onto his face and cracking his knuckles. Blaze gave a mere nod in response.

"Heh, heh, sweet!" Skate shouted, pumping a fist.

"I'm on board," Axel said, his expression hard, per usual. "If X is in a new city now, it means that that Toronto will face the same kinds of hell that Wood Oak did because of that son-of-a-bitch."

"And I think I speak for all of us when I say: We just _can't_ leave the people up in Toronto hanging. Not when we know what X is capable of." Adam added.

"Agreed. It may not be our city, but we need to act. Just like Adam said, we can't leave Toronto to suffer. We know just what it's like to live in a city run by that man. Besides, if we don't, X could expand The Syndicate beyond Toronto, to all of Canada. The less he owns, the better."

"Well, how much territory has he taken over so far?" Max inquired.

"I wish I knew," Blaze answered with a sigh of exasperation. "Murphy didn't say when he dropped me the intel. He just told me that X is in Canada now."

"Not to worry, for I can easily determine that using my sensors once we arrive," Zan assured with the hint of a smile, which faded instantly with his next low-spoken words. "But for now, we must make haste."

"Right on!" Skate exclaimed, getting up with the rest of the team. "Time to show that dick wherever _he_ goes, _we'll_ go!"

"There's a website I know of that gets you plane tickets super cheap," Blaze said, pulling her laptop onto her lap and opening it. "I'll email it to you guys, but in the meantime, it would be a good idea for you guys to start packing."

As the five other males nodded in agreement, the collective team of six bade each other farewell, Blaze watched as they filed out her front door, closing and locking it behind Adam, who was the last to exit. She sat back down, and got to emailing the site to her friends. Once that was done, she made her way to the flight of stairs leading up to her room, to pack her things as well. As she ascended the steps, she narrowed her eyes, the hint of a frown appearing on her features.

 _Whether you know it or not, X, we're coming._

* * *

 _ **A/N: Hello everybody! Here is my first fanfiction that involves something non-SEGA (even if it is only half of the fic), and yes, the Scott Pilgrim side of things will be in the next chapter. I**_ _ **will also be giving the "unnamed backup cop" from Streets of Rage 1 the name of Murphy, as he is called in the comics, even though the continuity is of the SoR games. As for the SoR cannon concerning the events of the third installment in the series, I am going to be following the Japanese storyline as opposed to the American/European storyline. I like that one better, as it's more intense and dark than the US/EU SoR3 plotline in my opinion, which would only fuel the heroes' resolve to bring him down after he targeted a city that was just minding it's own business, like Toronto.**_

 ** _And for those of you SoR fans that may have raised an eyebrow at the fact that Zan has 'sensors' in this story and are wondering why, let me explain. There have been lines of dialogue in 3 and especially Remake that insinuate that he can detect artificial things such as bombs, and organic things such as people. And Zan IS a cyborg, soooo. . .yeah. I'm going with the fact that he has sensors that alert him to such things. Other fans have made this connection as well, and the whole 'sensors' thing'll be important during certain events that happen within this story._**

 ** _Thirdly, some readers may wonder why I'm including a fanmade game (SoR Remake) into the SoR cannon. Remake was so faithful to the originals, and as a result, so well received, that critics and reviewers everywhere have considered it part of the Streets of Rage series (despite it being made by a Spanish indie-game company called Bombergames rather than SEGA.) I'm no different from these people, and will treat the content introduced in Remake like it came from an SoR game by mixing it in with that of the SoR 1, 2, and 3 content for this story._**

 _ **So with that, I'll see you in the next chapter!**_

 _ **\- Stefan422**_


	2. Chapter 2

**Streets of Toronto**

 **Chapter Two**

"All right, Scott," Kim Pine grumbled, narrowing her eyes at her absent-minded bandmate, Scott Pilgrim, who turned his gaze from the sheet music before him to meet hers.

 **Kim Pine**

 **Drummer**

 **Likes: Nothing**

"We're doing that one song we picked out yesterday. . .try not to mess it up this time." She said venomously.

"Hey! I had was on the Last Story of Sonic Adventure 2: Battle when you interrupted me! How did you expect me to focus with videogames on the brain?!" Scott protested, a bass guitar strapped across his chest.

 **Scott Pilgrim**

 **24 years old**

 **Rating: Still Awesome**

"Typical Scott." Came the remark of Stephen Stills, the 'talent' of the now disbanded Sex Bob-omb, that had consisted of himself, Scott, and Kim. "Won't you _ever_ start paying attention?"

 **Stephen Stills**

 **22 years old**

 **"The (Former?) Talent"**

Knives Chau, an 18-year old university student on break who had come for a visit cringed slightly at the thought of Scott playing from where she she sat on the floor, yet smiled. _Never change, Scott. The fact that you're you makes you. . .AWESOME._

 **Knives Chau**

 **18 Years Old**

 **She is a ninja (Not really)**

Neil Nordegraf, or Young Neil, as he was usually referred to as by his friends, was present as well, quietly leaning against a wall in the house, observing the practice session of Shatter Band (merely to spend time with his friends again), along with Stills and Scott's cat, Gideon, who'd boredly glanced up at Kim and her drum set.

 **Neil Nordegraf**

 **Lives with Stephen Stills**

 **Exes: Knives Chau**

"Whatever, Scott, I don't care." Kim dismissed, grabbing her drumsticks and raising them. After seeing Scott ready his fingers over the strings, Kim began to shout at the top of her lungs. **"WE ARE SHATTER BAND! ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR—"**

Before Shatter Band could play a single note, the front door flew open, and Ramona Flowers, Scott's current girlfriend, came in running through the open doorway, sobbing into her palms. Upon seeing his girlfriend in such a state, Scott immediately tossed his bass onto a nearby couch and ran to comfort her.

"Ramona! Ramona, what's wrong? What happened?!" Scott questioned, concerned. He would have asked more, but he was cut off by her pulling him into a desperate hug and continuing to weep into his shoulder.

" _It's happening again, Scott_!" She choked out between sobs. Her head was noticeably glowing.

 **Ramona Flowers**

 **Dating Scott**

 **Current Status: (Obviously) Anguished**

Scott was confused initially on what she meant by that, but if whatever it meant had her this upset, it was without question worth investigating.

"What do you mean, Ramona? What's happening again?" His voice filled with urgency, holding the still-crying Ramona tightly as he tried to decipher what the hell she meant. Then Scott tensed suddenly with alarm, standing up perfectly straight.

"No. . ." He barely whispered. "You mean—"

At that moment, Ramona managed to cease her crying, and looked up to meet Scott's gaze, silently cutting him off. The resurrected emotional pain clearly reflected in her face, which was marked with tear stains, and in her red, bloodshot eyes.

"Yes, Scott." She said, slightly shakily. "It's him. He's back, Gideon is back, Scott." She then resumed crying into his shoulder, however this time, they were soft weeps, that increased slowly began to increased volume.

Scott was at a short loss for words. He held Ramona in a protective grip, while a nasty frown came over his own features. "Gideon," He hissed, his own head giving off a faint glow, before his confusion came. "Wait. . .how's this even possible. We killed him. . ." He paused his thinking as he suddenly realized that everyone was still in the room. "Guys, we're gonna, like, need some privacy." He said with a straight, firm, tone, while looking at each other person in the room briefly. They all nodded understandingly, and filed out of the room.

Now alone, Scott turned his attention back to his girlfriend, who looked up at him once again, having significantly slowed her tears. "Rammy, how could this have happened? We beat him at the Chaos Theatre. . ."

"I-I know, Scott, I remember it happening, b-but I just don't understand how he and the rest of the League could be back." She sniffled.

Scott's eyes widened. "Wait, the entire League is back?! How? I beat them. . .I beat them all. . ." Scott trailed off, frowning, before his eyes widened again as a lightbulb went off in his head. He had an idea, one that just might help solve this mystery.

"Rammy, I hate to ask this of you. . .but could you tell me what happened today up until now? Who told you that Gideon is back?"

 _-Flashback-_

 _Ramona Flowers walked leisurely walked down the streets of Toronto. There was no particular reason for it, she wasn't making her rounds with the deliveries, or anything, just a normal, casual evening stroll in Toronto. Leaves swirled in the autumn breeze as the street lamps lit her path. Even in spite of the many recent and mysterious crimes occurring, she let a small, carefree smile grace her features as she padded along the sidewalk. Being attacked by street filth was the absolute least of Ramona's worries. She had not only The Power of Love and her Large Hammer at her disposal, but also solid Ninjitsu skills that made her a force to be reckoned with._

 _Ramona rounded a corner, seeing two things: one, that these streetlights had went out, and two, that there appeared to be a figure of a human idly standing in the darkness just waiting for her._

 _"You only get one warning," Ramona said, getting straight to the point, drawing the Power of Love from her new Subspace Bag. She got into a longsword stance and pointed it menacingly at the shadow, tightening her grip on the weapon. "try any funny stuff, and I use this."_

 _The figure gave an arrogant scoff, not surprising Ramona. An ordinary human being would likely be scared for their lives, but Ramona was no ordinary human being._

 _"Now, that wouldn't be very nice, considering our history, Ramona." Came the figure's eerily familiar voice._

 _Ramona's eyes widened in shock, her jaw dropped down, and her knees felt very wobbly._

 _"No. . .no, no, no!" Ramona cried, unable to believe her eyes. Memories of the past resurfaced, causing fear and anxiety to fill her._

 _"Yes, Ramona, I'm back." The figure sneered, before stepping into the light to reveal himself to be Gideon Gordon Graves._

 _"H-h-h", Ramona tried oh-so desperately to form the word 'how?', but the mere shock of seeing her supposed-to-be dead psychopathic ex standing in front of her, alive and well, limited her speech to mere incoherent stutters as her heart beat like a drum in her chest._

 _"I won't tell you how I came back, but I'll tell you that I didn't come back alone."_

 _Ramona's eyes got wider, and she gasped._

 _"That's right, the rest of the League is back, too. Matthew, Lucas, Todd, Roxy, The twins—and we're all coming for revenge on your precious Scott."_

 _"Scott beat you all before, I know he'll do it again!" Ramona said, raising her voice when she finally found it. Gideon just smiled and shook his head amusedly._

 _"You don't get it, Ramona. We've learned from our failures, and with revenge fueling us, we can't lose."_

 _Several more waves of anxiety crashed over Ramona, shaking her to the core. She backed away from him, holding The Power of Love out in front of her, pointing the tip of the blade straight at him._

 _"You're not real. . .you're DEAD. . .I saw you die with my own eyes! This is some sick joke!" She stuttered. Gideon began to slowly walk toward her, not trying to catch her, but matching her pace. They walked, Gideon forward, Ramona backwards, until the latter suddenly ran out of space and was backed up against a wooden telephone pole._

 _"I'm very real, Ramona." He said, taking a hand to lightly caress her chin in a condescending manner._

 _"Oh my God. . .he IS real!" Ramona thought, as her eyes drifted downward to his hand, causing hot tears to pool in her eyes, and then spill down her cheeks._

 _Quickly lowering her sword, Ramona fled the scene, hearing the horrible laugh of Gideon tear through the sky as she ran. Stuffing The Power of Love into her bag, she used both free hands to cry into her now free hands, overcome with emotion. Wiping her tears, she suddenly remembered that Gideon could've been tailing her, prompting her to whip her head behind her, to check. The leader of the League was nowhere to be seen, but Ramona still felt terrible, she was still crying. The bane of her love life had returned, seemingly out of nowhere, and he was driven by vengeance. Ramona, still in despair, hurried off to the one person that could and would help her the most through this._

 _-End of flashback-_

"Woah. . ." That was Scott. "He _is_ back. . ."

"What are we going to do, Scott?" Ramona said, visibly on the verge of shedding more tears, that were stopped by Scott's next words.

"Ramona," Scott said, gently wiping her tears and softly stroking her bright green hair. She looked into his eyes. "I'll always fight for your love. It's like you told him, I've defeated everybody in his League of Evil Exes, and I'll do it again." He told her in a determined, yet comforting voice. For the first time that day since she'd ran into Gideon, she smiled. It was a small one, but still a smile. Which faded instantly.

"No, Scott."

"Huh? What do you mean, Ramona?" Scott asked, completely thrown off by his girlfriend's two words.

"You won't be fighting them. _We_ will. I just refuse to be sitting around being helpless this time." She gently grabbed his hands as she spoke with soft, yet strong decisiveness. "We're going to do this one _together_."

Scott was only able to voice his agreement with a heartfelt kiss, which Ramona gladly reciprocated. Their lips met and their tongues mingled for a blissfully long time, interrupted only by the need for air.

"That was good, Scott," Ramona winked at him. "You've gotten better at kissing."

"Heh, heh. Yeah, I guess," Scott mumbled happily. "You're a pretty awesome kisser too, Ramona."

Ramona laughed softly. "Thanks, Scott." A beautiful silence followed afterwards. They didn't really need to say anything, all they needed were each other's loving company and support.

"So I guess we should tell the others that they can come back in now, huh, dude?" Ramona asked Scott.

"Huh?" Scott looked confused, when he suddenly remembered that everyone had left them alone for some privacy. "Oh _yeaaaah!_ The others!" He said, heading towards the door. A smiling Ramona shook her head at her boyfriend's absentmindedness.

"So is she okay?" Stills asked Scott, who was tuning his bass strings. No one had really asked about Ramona's condition since they were let back in, but this was only due to sensitivity reasons.

"Yeah, she's okay. She just got really shaken up. Like _really_."

"No kidding," That was Knives. She now sat on the couch, leaned over with her elbows on her knees, and her head propped up by her hands, shocked at how she'd seen Ramona act. "Gideon must totally get to Ramona if it caused her to just. . .cry like that.

"He kinda does." Scott said, speaking in a tone that nobody could really pinpoint. "Ramona's tough. She wouldn't break down like she did over just _anything_. . .It'd have to be something big. Like, _REALLY_ big."

"I just can't believe he's back." Stills said, him, Knives, and Neil still in disbelief at what they'd heard. Even Kim couldn't fight a surprised feeling at the news.

"You guys, like, killed him though." Neil said quietly.

"Yeah, at the Chaos Theatre or something." Knives added, louder.

"Yeah, I know, but he's back, and so are the other exes. We have no idea how it could've happened."

"Wow. . .so, where is Ramona now, anyway?" Kim asked, sitting at her drum set.

"In the other room. . . I think," Scott responded, jerking his thumb behind him before letting his arm drop slowly, his brow furrowing uncertainly. "But she's training. She's helping me defeat the exes this time."

"Ramona's fighting with you this time?" Kim said looking somewhat surprised. Her expression soured with her next words. "You could at _least_ start _actually_ training, you know. They're probably going to be twice as hard to beat this time, especially since you're probably going to have to actually _fight_ Lucas and especially Todd, not get to bullshit your way past them."

"Oh don't worry about me, Kim." Scott waved her off dismissively. "I _am_ the best fighter in Toronto after all! Besides, I don't have time to train, we have to practice today for that gig we have tomorrow night."

Kim rolled her eyes. "Don't remind me."

"It'll be fine, Kim!"

"Scott, I don't know if you've noticed, but we suck. Horribly." Kim said bitterly, glaring at Scott. Neil and Knives wisely chose to remain silent and direct their eyes elsewhere.

"You never know, Kim! Maybe they'll like us this time!" Scott argued with wild gestures to underline his statement.

"They'd better, otherwise this'll have just been an enormous waste of time."

A silence enveloped them. They went back to checking their equipment before Stills interrupted it with a point. "You know, Scott, I think you should start training for real. Have you heard about all the crimes that have been going on around town lately? _I'd_ want to be prepared if x amount of criminals decided to gang up on me, or something."

"Yeah, when did Toronto get so. . . _violent?_ I mean, I can handle myself in those situations, but I didn't think I'd ever really need to. At least not in this part of Canada." Knives added."

"Guys, I appreciate the concern, but I've _got this_." He chuckled. "I'm good with learning from fighting games."

"Whatever you say, Scott." Knives giggled. Stills merely sighed and shook his head.

"Then let's get this last practice for the night started then. We're wasting time." Kim said, picking up her drumsticks. Scott once again readied his fingers upon the correct strings. Kim raised her drumsticks high.

 _ **"WE ARE SHATTER BAND! ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR!"**_

* * *

 ** _A/N: Hey guys! And here is the next chapter! Longer than the first one, but then again, don't comic universes always tend to be a tad bigger than the videogame ones? Lol._** ** _I had Scott's method of training be 'learning moves from playing fighting games' because it's implied he does so in the first volume of the comic when he Shoryukens Matthew Patel during their fight. Like the sensors thing with Zan, other fans have made this connection as well, so during Scott's 'training sessions, expect there to be Street Fighter, Virtua Fighter, Smash Bros. etc. Of course, you should also expect him to be playing such things outside of training as well—this IS Scott Pilgrim we're talking about here XD._**

 ** _And about Ramona. She wasn't really herself in this chapter, but that was fully intentional. She's only like that in this chapter because Gideon's somehow back, and he's really done a number on her psyche in the past. She's overcome with negative emotions at his return and doesn't know how to deal with it. But nevertheless, she'll be back to her normal self in the next chapter._**

 ** _Stay tuned for the next chapter, where Blaze and her group finally make it to the chilly streets of Toronto! Shit WILL go down. See you later!_**

 ** _\- Stefan422_**


	3. Chapter 3

**Streets of Toronto**

 **Chapter Three**

 _The Next Day_

"So this is Toronto," Blaze Fielding thought out loud, as she and her cohorts walked along the sidewalk of Toronto, pulling their suitcases behind them. "Nice city."

"What were you expecting it to look like?" Axel, who walked beside her, chuckled lightly, enjoying the view of the city himself.

Blaze smirked. "Nothing _bad._ It's just good to see that it's not a _total_ winter wonderland like people say it is. Being in Canada and all." She clarified, her own breath slightly visible in the autumn air.

Skate took in the types of people that were populating the area. A good 3/5 of them of the hipster subculture, dressed in suspenders, shutter shades, and the like. " _Man_ , it's like every hipster on the planet lives here in Toronto."

"Never been into that stuff," Adam said, shaking his head slightly. He then looked around as well, seeing a Pizza Pizza on a nearby street corner. "But it _is_ nice to get out of Lima for a while. See the new sights and all."

"Yep," Max said with that deep, hearty voice of his. "As a nature guy, I can never complain about a good change of scenery."

Zan, who had been rather quiet during the walk, had gotten more than a few stares from pedestrians thrown his way, for obvious reasons. Still, he ignored them. His mind was set on the mission at hand.

"My sensors indicate that we are not far from the Inn." Zan informed from the back of the group. They'd gotten a pretty hefty amount of Canadian money for spending at the exchange center stationed at the airport, and were now on their way to a centrally located Marriott that they had gotten directions to.

"Alright. Thanks, Zan." Axel thanked the elderly cyborg, keeping his eyes forward.

While they were walking, something caught Skate's eye. He pointed to it. "Hey. . .hold on guys, what's that?"

They all stopped and looked in the direction of Skate's finger. He had been pointing to a flyer nailed to a telephone pole.

" _Shatter Band,_ " Axel read outloud. " _Playing at The Stadium at 7:00pm TONIGHT. Free tickets."_

"Huh. Sounds cool, bro. If we get a free minute, we'll have to check them out." Adam said, turning to continue down the sidewalk.

"But why not tonight, though? It could help us get to know this place a little better. It'd make it easier on us when we went out to clean up the streets."

The others had to admit, Skate had a pretty good point.

"Kid's right," Max agreed. "Syndicate's on the loose here in Toronto, and a lot of people are gonna be at a concert that's giving out free tickets. If we went, we'd be able to keep an eye out for those goons trying to start anything. Y'know, keep the area safe." There were several nods.

"Good thinking, Max," Axel said to his good friend.

"Guess I'm not all brawn after all, huh?" The wrestler replied good-naturedly with a smile.

"To you as well, Skate." Zan praised. "You are beginning to think more strategically. Well done."

Skate grinned. " _Aww, thanks, Grandpa!_ " Zan chuckled slightly at the boy's ever-present sense of humor.

" _And_ we'll get to hear them play awesome music!" Skate added. " _Wonder if they're good. . ."_

Adam gave a brotherly scoff, the kind that held no real venom or malice in it. "That's the _real_ reason why you wanted to see the concert, isn't it?"

Skate stammered slightly but gained composure quickly after that. " _Uh, NO, Adam._ " He shot back, again, in that brotherly voice. "Like Zan said, I'm thinking _strategically._ "

" _Tch. 'Strategic thinking',_ yeah right!" Adam returned, giving Skate a little shove. Skate returned the gesture, resulting in both brothers chuckling in unison.

From up front, Blaze shook her head and smiled at the bond of the two siblings. "Then it's settled. We'll hit the concert at seven, really get a feel for this place on the way, and then search for a possible lead once it's over." Rounding a corner, she spotted a large, white Marriott and pointed to it as she addressed her team.

"There's a Marriott." She said, before turning to look back at Zan. "Zan, can you check if this is ours?"

"I already have. This is indeed where we will be staying." Zan replied.

"Good. Let's h—" Blaze started, but was cut off by the voice of Max.

"You OK there, Zan?" The wrestler inquired.

Soon, all eyes were on Zan, who'd stopped walking and had a somewhat blank look upon him as he stood on the sidewalk.

". . .Yes, I am fine, my apologies. My sensors had detected a most unusual type of energy coming from behind the hotel. I was merely thinking about what it could've been."

"Unusual energy?" Axel repeated, frowning seriously. "Well then I think we should check it out. The last thing we need on our hands is another Rakushin incident."

Blaze nodded, also now bearing a serious expression. "I couldn't agree more, Axel." She turned to her team. "Let's go see what's up, guys. Be careful."

The six heroes trudged around the side of the building, luggage still in tow. Once they crossed the halfway-there-threshold, Blaze slowed and asked a question.

"Zan, can. . .whatever you're picking up hurt us at all?"

"I'm sorry, Blaze, but my sensors cannot decipher what properties this new energy has. The only way to find out would be to investigate at a closeup level."

Blaze nodded in understanding. "Then I'll go."

"Just. . .be careful. You don't know what's around that corner." Axel advised, speaking to her as the close friend to her that he was. Blaze faced him and gave a tiny smile that said _'I will. Don't worry.'_. It faded as she turned back around and walked toward the edge of the side. Never one to just blindly hurl herself into potentially dangerous situations, Blaze slowed her walking speed dramatically upon rounding the corner.

Initially, she was confused, as there seemed to be nothing that could have been triggering Zan's sensors. The only thing in sight was a door on the back side of the building.

 _The door._ Blaze thought, slightly narrowing her eyes. _Has to be it._

Carefully, she made her way closer to the door, paying close attention to how she physically felt—she still didn't know what this energy was, after all. But as for now, everything felt fine. After a few more steps, she was right in front of the door, with no further change in how she felt, proving that the mysterious energy was harmless.

"What'd you find?!" She heard Adam shout.

"There's nothing here, except a door, but I think that's what might be giving off this energy!" Blaze called back. "You guys can, come over here if you wanna. It's safe."

The last part of that statement prompted the others to hurry over to where Blaze was, all wanting to see for themselves. Sure enough, the back area contained nothing (but Blaze), with the exception of a door. It had a picture of a yellow star on it, with the white paint of the door starting to peel.

"Yes, you're definitely correct, Blaze." Zan confirmed. "The energy is certainly coming from behind this door."

"Whatever's inside's gotta be what's setting off Zan's sensors." Adam said.

"Then let's have a look inside." Blaze said, reaching for the handle. Her fingers wrapped around the metal knob, she gave a twist, and pulled.

But nothing happened.

She tried again, and again, but the door refused to budge.

"Locked." Blaze simply grunted.

"Here, I've got this," Max said. Blaze stepped aside, letting Max in front of the door. The towering wrestler grasped the door, twisted, and pulled, yet got the same result as Blaze, des his great strength. The door simply refused to move. He tried several more times, with no different results.

" _Christ_ ," He said, frowning. He folded his huge arms. "That's one serious door if _I_ can't even open it." He looked to his leader. "So now what, Blaze?"

She thought it over for a second. "We leave it. Whatever it is, is harmless anyway, and besides, we've got more important matters. Zan said that The Syndicate has almost taken _complete_ control of Toronto. We need to be at our top form. For now, let's just head in and rest until seven."

Zan nodded. "The Syndicate has probably recruited more thugs, also."

"None of us got any sleep on that plane, either," Adam put in. He and the others were feeling fine at the moment, but they all knew that going out and fighting now, or later without rest, would come back to bite them _hard._ "We're as good as dead if we don't take this opportunity."

"Completely agree." Came Axel's laconic reply.

Following the exchange, the six heroes turned around and headed into the Marriott to check themselves in, put down their bags, and get some R&R before venturing out into the cold streets to take on the treacherous task of destroying The Syndicate once again.

* * *

 _Elsewhere in Toronto. . ._

Scott's face was scrunched up in concentration as he sat in front of the television, playing _Street Fighter Alpha 3_ on his Playstation One. He mashed the buttons and throttled the analog stick as accurately as he could in attempt to learn the Hurricane Kick. He'd already successfully learned the Shoryuken, and was unable to learn the Hadouken due to his inability to manipulate chi, so Scott figured he'd try for Ryu's spinning kick.

" _Alright. . ._ " He breathed, setting the controller down, having committed the attack to memory.

 **Scott learned Hurricane Kick!**

 **Attack +3**

 **Power +3**

 **Awesomeness +5**

"I. . .think I got it now!" Scott cheered, throwing a fist in the air in victory.

He then remembered that Ramona had been in the exercise room that they'd had installed since Gideon's first defeat. Even though he'd died, Ramona still felt the need to practice her moves. Though she only really did so here and there. But since yesterday, she'd spend hours in there, sharpening her skills. Scott looked in the direction of the exercise room. Ramona had been in there since they had eaten breakfast at eight. Right now, it was going on 11:30. He decided he would go and check on his girlfriend, as a good boyfriend should, especially in _their_ current situation.

Scott approached the exercise room, surprised the door was left slightly ajar, and peeked his head in. The sight that he got caused him to gasp loudly.

Ramona had been sending punches and kicks flying at a punching bag that had been dangling from a chain attached to the ceiling. With each attack, the bag was sent flying backward, and Scott thought that she might break it, but the bag didn't break. Something else happened. With a roar, Ramona crashed her fist into the bag with such force, that the bag flew off of the supporting chain and into the wall. The strain on the chain created by Ramona's blows had simply gotten to be too much, and the bag had been sent to join several others near the wall that had been knocked off as well as a result.

"Hey, bae." Ramona said, turning around with an exhausted huff. She was clad in her blue hoodie, and a pair of hot pink short-shorts, with white sneakers and leg warmers on her feet and ankles.

"H-hey, Rammy," Scott greeted back, amazed at the display of strength. "W-whatcha doin'?"

Ramona smirked at the rhetorical question. "Training."

"Oh. . .that's cool. I saw how you knocked that bag off of its chains. I was so busy I didn't even hear the things hitting the walls with each one you knocked off." He chuckled, eyeing the pile of about six or seven of punching bags piled up against the wall.

" _You've_ been busy?" Ramona said, putting a hand on her hip. "Doing what?"

He grinned excitedly and proudly. "I've been training, too! Here, watch this!"

Ramona nodded and stepped back, giving him some room to demonstrate his newest addition to his repertoire. Scott concentrated, and started spinning himself like a twister with one of his legs extended as he was lifted slightly off of the ground. It sent tiny gusts of wind, which fluttered Ramona's hair about as it progressed. Scott then gradually slowed, until his spinning ceased, then landed neatly.

Ramona simply shook her head and smiled. "You and your videogames, Scott, I swear."

"Heh. . .yeah. . ." Scott said, pausing shortly. He then regained his composure and continued the conversation. "You've been in here a long time today. Since breakfast, even."

Ramona nodded, going serious. "Yeah. But it's necessary, Scott. The League is coming back to separate us. We _need_ to be ready." A short pause. "I think I'll spend another few hours in here, then I'll take a break."

Scott nodded, noting the decisiveness in her tone. "Well alright. . .is there anything you need?"

Ramona parted her lips to say 'no', but closed them when she suddenly thought of one thing Scott could give her.

" _Actually_. . ." She drawled with a smirk. "I _could_ use a sparring partner. I'm getting a little tired of beating on these punching bags."

Scott scratched his head, Ramona's statement going right over his head. "But Rammy, aren't those personal sparring guys expensive?"

Ramona simply lowered her head and pinched the bridge of her nose with a grin at her boyfriend's cluelessness. "Scott! I'm talking about _you_! I want _you_ to spar with me!"

Scott's eyes widened. "Wait, what?! _M-me?!_ No! I couldn't hit a girl! Especially not you, Ramona!"

Ramona exhaled. "Scott, come on. You fought Roxy, didn't you?" She pointed out.

"Uh. . .that's uh. . .uh. . .that's totally different!" Scott stammered.

"And like I said," She continued, ignoring him. "We need to be ready. Besides, it's just _sparring._ Using our moves on actual people will benefit us."

"B-b-b-but—" Scott stammered once again, before sighing and lowering his gaze. "But I don't want to risk hurting you, Ramona."

Ramona smiled warmly. "I know you'd never hurt me, Scott. You love me too much to do something like that. And besides, I'm a tough girl. I can take whatever the 'best fighter in the province' can throw at me." Scott silently smiled and looked up to meet her gaze. She placed a hand on his shoulder and sweetly spoke. "Spar with me."

Scott sighed defeatedly, yet with a kind smile. "Okay, Ramona."

"Great. This should be fun." Ramona smirked, walking to pick up the fallen punching bags and to stuff them back inside her Subspace Bag with Scott's help. After that had been taken care of, the couple was ready to spar. They'd walked to the center of the room and stood facing one another, standing a short distance apart.

"Alright, Scott," Ramona said, assuming a combat stance and moving around the spacious room in a relaxed, yet concentrated circle, keeping her eyes trained on Scott, who surprisingly did the same, shuddering inwardly at Ramona's dangerous tone.

"Why aren't you doing anything, Scott? This isn't like you." Ramona asked, still keeping up her actions. Scott gave a quick shrug, and returned to his stance. Ramona was skeptical, but nonetheless didn't take her focus off of Scott as they continued to circle one another. Ramona, desperately itching for a good spar, got tired of waiting around.

"If you won't make the first move, then I will!" Ramona grunted, launching herself at Scott with alarming speed. Her right leg lashed out for a kick aimed right at his chest, which Scott barely had time to block against. The attack was followed by a punch to the stomach, which Scott took, doubling him over with a grunt of pain, Ramona saw her golden opportunity, and took it, giving him a roundhouse kick that sent him crashing to the floor. He'd never seen Ramona run with such speed before. It had caught him off guard, but now he was ready.

Scott got back to his feet, but didn't advance, giving Ramona the opportunity to come at him again. Now prepared, Scott got himself into a guarding position just in time for Ramona to send her fist flying into his guard. She attempted another punch aimed at his chest, also blocked. Deciding to stay off the offensive, Scott carefully sidestepped her next haymaker, and jumped over the sweeping kick that followed. Ramona was getting irritated, and not particularly because Scott had parried her next palm strike without counterattacking, either.

"Fight me, Scott!" Ramona said, throwing a round kick, which Scott caught. They stayed frozen where they stood, staring into each other's eyes. Ramona spoke reassuringly now. "I'll be fine, remember?"

"Alright" Scott said with a firm nod. ". . .If you say so."

The action seemed to resume at that point. Scott pulled Ramona's leg (which he still held) toward him, and delivered a hard elbow right to Ramona's face, knocking her off her feet. Instead of advancing to fight, Scott stayed put and watched Ramona, waiting for her reaction.

Ramona shook her head slightly and grinned. "Now _that's_ more like it!"

Ramona practically jumped to her feet, and charged Scott, who moved in as well, and feigned a kick to her shins. She saw right through it and roundhouse kicked him across the face.

"Nice try, dude." She chuckled as her foot made heavy contact with Scott's face, sending him reeling. Scott quickly regained his bearings and crouched, throwing two quick punches aimed at her ribs. Ramona saw them coming, but could only manage to avoid the former of them, as the latter caused her to double over slightly, but nevertheless, Scott was impressed.

"Wow, Rammy, you've gotten better," Scott smirked, taking his opportunity to give Ramona a monstrous backwards roundhouse kick, causing her body to do barrel rolls in midair as she flew across the room. She'd taken a solid fall and landed on her arm, but was uninjured, and back on her feet in seconds, with a rather rugged groan. Ramona ran and jumped at Scott with surprising (or unsurprising) agility, drew back her fist, and threw her arm forward. Scott was able to block the strike just in time, but he couldn't prevent himself from sliding several feet back from the sheer impact force of her blow.

"Thanks," Ramona said simply, yet earnestly with a smirk as she dashed after him to get close. Knowing she currently had the upper hand, she decided to take advantage of her position by aiming a low kick at one of Scott's legs. It connected, sending a completely unprepared Scott stumbling backwards.

Letting out a heavy grunt, Ramona launched her fist straight into Scott's chest, causing him to fly backwards, straight into the door, resulting in pain spreading throughout Scott's back. He didn't have time to complain about it, however, as Ramona had already closed the distance between them again. She winked, before grabbing him firmly by the shirt and heaving him backwards, turning her whole body with the gesture.

"You're killing my back!" Scott groaned, having landed roughly on his back, the impact of which having intensified the already present pain from being knocked into the door. Still, Scott endured it, as he got up and reassumed his stance. "I'm only like, 24! I shouldn't have to have back pains until i'm like, _old!_ "

"Then you'll know what to expect." Ramona shrugged with a smirk, though it was purely a joshing remark that held no actual venom. She would ease his pain later. But for now, they would spar.

She ran at Scott and attempted a jumping roundhouse, which Scott was quick enough to duck under. Scott remained in his crouching stance, waiting until Ramona had landed. . .

"Get ready for _this!_ "

To bring his right fist up in a Shoryuken, the move lifting his entire body off the ground. His fist struck Ramona squarely in the chin, and the impact was enough to send her flying into the air. However, unlike his actions when he faced Matthew Patel, Scott let himself fall harmlessly back to his feet instead of choosing to bombard her with aerial punches. No. He had something different in mind this time. He kept an eye on Ramona as she fell, waiting until she was at the appropriate height.

When Ramona was now only about two feet above Scott in her descent, he ran to where she would've fallen, and Hurricane Kicked, his body almost a blur as his foot crashed into Ramona's body several times, each with a loud thudding sound. In mid attack, Ramona twisted her head to meet Scott's gaze, a mischievous gleam in her eye. She let a grunt of exertion escape her throat as she shot her hand out to grab Scott's ankle, stopping the spinning of his body. Now free of the attack's 'juggle' effect that it tended to have, Ramona smirked, as her feet touched the ground. Still not relinquishing her hold on Scott, she forced a powerful side kick into his gut, effectively sending him sliding several feet away from her.

Scott panted lightly. With one hand, he lightly clutched his stomach, which had now slightly ached due to his girlfriend's attack. "You. . .you stopped my Hurricane Kick. . ."

Ramona stood with a smirk, hands on hips. "I've been training. Simple as that." She reassumed her fighting stance. "We gonna continue?"

Scott did the same, grinning excitedly. "Oh, you bet!"

 **ONE HOUR-LONG SPARRING SESSION LATER. . .**

Scott and Ramona stood exhausted, their fists semi-raised in verbal silence accentuated only by their heavy panting, the two being desperate for air after what they'd just done.

"Just. . . _woah_ , Rammy." Was all Scott could manage to coherently say between breaths.

"Yeah. . .( _hah)_. . .you were. . . _(hah)_. . .good too, Scott." Ramona responded, wiping the beads of sweat from her forehead. The two of them walked toward each other, grabbing one another's hands in a gentle grip.

"And I'm no worse for wear, see?" Ramona laughed lightly, her loving gaze meeting Scott's. "Didn't I tell you I'd be alright?"

Scott felt slightly nervous at her words. "R-Ramona, I—"

He was silenced by a surprise kiss from Ramona. It had the magical quality of being gentle, yet passionately forceful, all at once. Scott did the only logical thing at that moment, to return the kiss with just as much vigor and emotion as she put into it. Maybe even a little more. Their lips parted slowly afterward. "You just didn't want me hurt. I know, Scott." She said gently. She then wrapped her arms around his neck. "You're a really good boyfriend."

"And you're the most awesome girlfriend in the world, Ramona." Scott responded, in turn wrapping his arms around her waist. Scott stared her up and down, admiring his gem (or flower) of a girlfriend, his eyes inadvertently stopping slightly below her collar area. She hadn't been wearing anything under her hoodie, and it was partly unzipped at the top, allowing Scott to stare directly at her cleavage.

Ramona quickly followed his eyes and smiled playfully and knowingly. "Were you just looking at my boobs?"

"I, uh. . . _n-no!_ Why would you think that?!" Scott said, apprehensively shifting his gaze side to side, avoiding Ramona's.

"Dude, I _saw_ where your eyes were pointed. You were looking at my boobs." Ramona stated, laughing.

"It was an accident! I swear!" Scott blurted out.

Ignoring this, Ramona's smile grew seductive as she held him. "Well since you're so interested in my body. . ." She smoothly trailed off, before crashing her lips onto his in a kiss that quickly intensified. Scott knew there was something different about this type of kiss when she brought her tongue into play. Yep, definitely something different about how they were kissing this time. This one was almost. . . _needy_ and even desperate, completely unlike the relaxed kiss they shared earlier.

Picking up on the all of the cues—the type of kiss that they were currently sharing, Ramona's words before said kiss had even begun, and the fact that she was now threading her fingers through the back of his hair, Scott decided to make a move, bringing his right hand slightly down past her waist to grab her backside, causing his girlfriend heat up and tingle with excitement. Before either of them could suggest taking it to the bedroom, the doorbell rang, interrupting the mood, much to the displeasure of the two.

"Ugh! Stupid doorbell." Ramona growled after breaking the kiss, clearly irritated.

"I got it. Be right back." Scott said, releasing Ramona and exiting the exercise room.

"When you get back, we'll pick up where we left off. Sound good, babe?" She slyly inquired, poking her head out of the doorway.

"Huh? Oh, uh, heh heh, yeah. . ." Scott chuckled, rubbing the back of his head, only just now getting her drift.

"You're too much, dude," Ramona softly laughed as she leaned against the doorframe of the exercise room, watching Scott go.

Scott continued on his way to the door. Whoever was at the door had apparently gotten impatient, as they had insisted on repeatedly ringing it rather annoyingly. Scott figured it was either Knives or an eager Girl Scout selling cookies. He opened the door and found Knives bouncing anxiously on the balls of her feet, waiting to launch into speech.

" _Scott! Oh my God! Shatter Band's show tonight! Oh my God!_ " Knives spoke rapidly. She was clothed somewhat casually, in a sleeveless black shirt that came slightly past her waist, gray sweatpants, a belt that ran around her waist, black bands that went from her wrists to her mid-forearms, and her rather distinctive black and white scarf. The red streak was also once again dyed into her short, dark hair. Scott studied her expression. She didn't look the least bit happy at all, but instead extremely troubled, disturbed, and urgent.

"Knives, wait! Hold on a second!" Scott said, holding his palms up. "Just. . .come on in, and tell me what this is about."

Knives nodded vigorously and entered, and took a seat on the couch, prompting Scott to do the same.

"Scott, you and Kim _can't_ play tonight!" She stressed.

"What?" Scott asked, blinking confusedly. "Why not?"

Having overheard the small bit of conversation, Ramona entered the room, a look of concern etched onto her features. "What's going on?" She asked, noting Knives' expression.

"These totally ridiculous crimes are what's going on!" Knives supplied with gestures.

Scott scratched his head. "Uhh, Knives? We talked about this yesterday, remember?"

Knives fought the urge to facepalm. "No, Scott! They've gotten worse! Like waaayyy worse! There have been at _least_ 20 people found dead on the sidewalk in the last hour!"

" _Christ Almighty._ " Ramona commented, sourly surprised to hear the news. She'd already been aware of the mysterious crimes suddenly occurring, but Knives was right. Things _had_ gotten worse.

"Wow. . ." Scott muttered sullenly, turning his gaze to the floor before eying Knives curiously. "Wait, how do you know this?"

"I saw it on the news."

"Oh. . .wait—you watch the news?" Scott questioned somewhat unintelligently.

"The point is," Ramona interjected, irritated not necessarily at Scott, but at the condition of Toronto. " _Somebody_ needs to do something about all this mindless violence," Knives nodded as Ramona continued on her rant. "Hell, those cops need to stop screwing around and do their jobs."

Knives nodded vigorously. "Yeah! When I saw it, I was like ' _OHMYGOD,_ I have to tell Scott about this so he can cancel his show! I mean, he's the best fighter in Canada and if crime wasn't this insane he would totally be safe in public and he would totally beat up those criminals if they tried to kill him or something, but crime _is_ this insane so I have to warn him!" Having finished her long sentence, she finally took a breath of much needed air.

"Knives," Scott chuckled, crossing his arms triumphantly, ever confident in his abilities. "You just said so yourself, I'm Toronto's best fighter. _And_ I've got a huge badass sword, too!"

"Knives may have a point, dude." Ramona said, crossing her arms over her chest. "These criminals sound pure savage to me. And there's no telling how many of them would approach you at a time. Not to mention _they've_ likely got weapons, too, Scott. I don't know if I'd advise putting yourself out in public like that, either. All of the other bands have kind of disappeared since the crimes have started. When was the last time you've seen a flyer for The Boys and Crash since all this started?"

"That's completely. . .different?" Scott tried to argue, but then fully relented after seeing Ramona arch an eyebrow at him in a way that said 'Oh yeah, and how so?'

"But I still really want to play though! This could be big for Shatter Band!" Scott protested. "How about I just see if Kim can help with getting some security for us?"

"I. . .guess. . ." The courier finally answered, seemingly satisfied with Scott's idea.

"Thanks, Scott." Knives smiled, momentarily forgetting Ramona was there. Even though they weren't together anymore, Knives and Scott were still friends, and she really cared about him. In a friendly, albeit extremely obsessive way. "It's a good thing I came over, huh? Can't have my _Clash at Demonhead_ getting in danger!" She wrapped her arm around Scott's shoulder and was about to rest her head on his shoulder in friendly affection, but decided against it upon catching Ramona's questioning stare.

"Scott, where would you even _get_ security?" Ramona asked, watching as Knives awkwardly removed her arm from around Scott. "I thought they only offered that to the touring ones."

"They usually do, but I heard that even the small-time bands will get to have security _on stage_ , because of all these crimes! Y'know, to keep the players safe." He then turned to Knives. "You're coming, right Knives?"

"Uhhh. . .well, see here's the thing. . .my uh, dad wants me, for, uhhh. . . _training!_ Yeah! He, uh, doesn't think that I've been keeping up my training while I've been away at school, so he's, uh, making me stay home and practice with him all night." Knives stutteringly lied, blushing a hot pink. She saw Scott as a true friend, she really did, but she wasn't a fan of Shatter Band at all, and didn't really feel like going.

"But we can still hang out and do stuff while I'm here, right?" Knives asked hopefully, staring into Scott's eyes, with hers own almost shining with hope.

"Totally!" Scott enthused, giving Knives a thumbs up.

Knives gave a tiny squeal of excitement and pumped a fist. She then exhaled softly, a smile still on her face. "Well, I guess I should get going. But I'll see you later, Scott!" She flashed him and Ramona the peace sign before taking her leave.

"You _do_ know that she doesn't really need to train, right?" Ramona asked, once she'd closed the door behind Knives.

"Hey, you never know, Rammy," Scott shrugged, smiling. "Maybe her dad _did_ want to see if she remembers her skills."

Ramona knew better but chose to drop the subject of Knives. "If you say so." She shrugged, before wrapping her arms around his neck. Her tone then became _much_ more lovey-dovey with her next words, as did her expression. " _I'll_ be there to see you play."

Scott smiled, and wrapped his arms around his girlfriend, pulling her close. "Aw, thanks, Ramona." They kissed once more, pressing their lips tightly against one-another's. It proved to be passionate, yet short, as Ramona broke the kiss to impishly whisper into his ear.

"So _,_ where we? You know, before we were interrupted by that stupid doorbell. . ."

* * *

 _Elsewhere in Toronto at 6:45 P.M._

Blaze and her team sat in a streetcar, paying careful attention to the areas that it passed, and making mental notes of any possible landmarks that could serve as a possible indication as to where they were. They would have walked the whole way on foot, but once they received directions to the stadium that Shatter Band was due to perform at, they decided it would be best to hop on a streetcar halfway so they would make it to the concert in time, as the majority of the six vigilantes were actually curious as to how good Shatter Band was, and preferred not to miss anything.

"Alright, based on those directions we were given, I'd say we should be coming up to the stadium soon, guys." Blaze said, keeping her gaze glued to the outside.

"Sweet," Skate grinned, looking outside as well.

"We are on unfamiliar turf, everyone. I propose we stay alert at the stadium, and continue to look for landmarks before we arrive." Zan reminded, not really looking forward to listening to loud rock music, but willing to do so if he could get tactical advantages of his new surroundings in the process. He was also somewhat glad that they happened to be the only ones riding the streetcar on this cold night. For confidentiality.

"Zan's right. Even though we're not out on the streets, we still need to stay vigilant." Blaze stressed.

"Believe me, I am," Axel said, frowning at something out the window. "I saw that we passed some pretty suspect-looking alleyways. Might wanna check those out. . ."

Max grinned, making a fist in anticipation with one hand, while placing the other on the shoulder of his close friend. "I'm with you on that one, buddy. Busting Syndicate skulls'll never get old."

Adam chuckled at Max's shameless passion for fighting. "Heh, yeah." His smile slightly faded with his next words as he looked to the sky. "Shame Murphy couldn't've made it along with us, though."

"Yeah." Blaze nodded. "But here is probably the last place we needed him in, though. We needed to make positively sure that Wood Oak was free of any of X's influences after hearing that he was back. But I see your point, Adam. It would've been nice to have some extra firepower. But we'll just have to make do."

"Which won't be a problem at all," Max smirked. "We are _us_ after all."

Adam gave a chuckle, laid back as usual. He leaned back in his seat. "Damn straight, Max."

Blaze looked closely out the window, seeing the streetcar approach a heavily populated area. She could see there were brightly colored lights in the sky for flare. This was confirmed when the transit began to slow down. "Our stop."

Axel let a small smile cross his chiseled features. "Not a bad deal. We scope out the town, then we get to see a concert. How lucky are _we?_ "

"I know right?" Skate jumped in, obviously excited. They finally came to a stop, pulled out their (free) concert tickets, and began to unboard the streetcar. "Time to see how hard these Shatter Band guys can rock!" Again, Skate.

" _If we must_. . ." The elderly cyborg sighed, standing up, the sounds of the excitedly chattering crowd outside already beginning to irritate him. "Though I honestly can't _stand_ that garbage that they call music nowadays." This earned him a hearty laugh from Max.

"Heh, thought you might say something like that, Zan," Max chuckled good-naturedly, walking off the streetcar behind Zan. "But just try not to sweat it. Besides, how bad could it be, right?"

* * *

 _Backstage. . ._

"Kim! Are you ready?!" Scott shouted, unable to locate his best friend, and bandmate backstage. After a short pause he continued to wander around and call out. "Is everything set up?! What songs are we doing?! KI—"

"I'm right here, Scott! _Jesus!_ " Kim snarled as she approached him, drumsticks in hand. She wasn't sure about this, and wasn't sure how Scott had convinced her to do this. She knew the audience would hate them. They didn't even have costumes, instead opting to just come as they were, with her in her black and blue jacket, sneakers and a red skirt, and with Scott in his clothes he'd been in earlier that day, his golden-yellow _Plumtree_ shirt, wristbands of the same color with a red stripe, a pair of sneakers, jeans. With the addition of his (unzipped) blue parka—he'd insisted he would have been cold without it.

"And to answer your idiotic questions, _yes,_ I'm ready, _yes_ everything is set up—my drums are right out on stage, and we're doing those songs that you picked out. _Remember?_ "

" _That's_ right!," Scott said, snapping his fingers in realization after momentarily forgetting. Kim facepalmed. Scott resumed talking, now at a quicker pace. "And we're all set to go? Awesomesauce. I wanna see how big of an audience we got!"

Hurry up! We go on in two minutes!" Kim shouted after Scott as he ran to peek out at the audience.

Scott stuck his head out and scanned the massive murmuring crowd. There collective idle chatter could be heard all the way backstage, and it appeared as though everybody was in conversation while they waited—the only exception being the burly, black-clad security guards, who stood in two pairs of two on either far end of the stage with their arms crossed menacingly.

 _Looks like security came through for us._ Scott thought, his gaze then sweeping over the audience once more in pure wonder, until his eyes landed on an all-too familiar face. A pretty one at that. In the front area, Ramona flowers waved to her boyfriend, smiling. Scott's smiled widely as his eyes moved right, then left, then he waved back, almost embarrassedly. Despite being drowned out by everyone else, Ramona snickered, and cheekily blew Scott a kiss. He caught it awkwardly, causing Ramona to laugh. Scott smiled once again. He was happy that she'd came to his show, despite the fact that he and Kim weren't the best musicians. It showed that she supported him, and would always accept his flaws and shortcomings. Scott could say the same for his sister, Stacy, who had attended the show for the exact same reason. Scott tried searching the crowd for her as well, but wasn't able to locate her in the sea of people. He would have continued to look if Kim hadn't interrupted him with a tap on the shoulder.

"C'mon, let's do this." She said, taking a seat at her drum set.

"Ready, Kim!" Scott said, grabbing his bass which stood against a speaker. "Look at all these people! Isn't it awesome?! We have so many fans!"

" _Dumbass_. We don't have _any_ fans. They all probably don't know how bad we suck because we're not in _Sex Bob-omb_ anymore. We're _Shatter Band_ now. And we were literally giving away free tickets." **(Fun Fact: The owner of this venue decided to give Scott and Kim a free show because he thought Scott was an awesome person for defeating Gideon for Ramona back at the Chaos Theatre.)**

Kim walked over to the microphone and tapped it several times with a finger, creating a loud popping noise mixed with shrill feedback. The entire crowd took the near-deafening sound as a sign that the show was starting, and ceased all side conversations amongst themselves.

Kim had a grimly focused look upon her. Scott grinned like a maniac. They shared a single nod.

Effectively shattering the short silence that hung in the air, Kim shouted her intro into the mic, raising her sticks high.

 _ **"WE ARE SHATTER BAND! ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR!"**_

 **MUSIC HAPPENED.**

 _ **"THANK YOU, TORONTO!"**_ Kim shouted into the mic over the murmurs of disappointment and boos of the crowd, hopping off her drum stool, and turning to look Scott in the eye with an actual genuine smile. Granted, it was small, but it was still a smile.

"That was. . .actually not that bad. For us, I mean."

"I know! That was probably the best we've ever played! Scott enthused, throwing a fist in the air in victory.

"Maybe. . .we should. . .play again sometime," Kim said awkwardly, having rather enjoyed herself up on stage. And somehow with it being just her and Scott up there playing, she was reminded of her high school days. "Opening, I mean. I mean if we don't. . .well, I mean nobody will want to come to our next _main_ performance. Cause of how bad we suck." Kim chuckled.

"Yeah. . ." Scott said, scratching the back of his head absently, having enjoyed himself as well, despite the verdict they received from the crowd. He was all-too enthusiastic for Shatter Band's next show, and firmly believed that with each show, they would get better. He would be determined as ever to pass this optimism onto Kim, should she ever grow negative about Shatter Band's success, knowing how she got. But for the moment, Scott decided to simply revel in his small victory with Kim.

All of a sudden, the harsh and sound of gunshots cracked through the night air, turning the crowds' boos and complaints into shrieks of raw horror, the mass of attendees running in every direction, even practically trampling each other in a desperate attempt to save their lives. Seemingly out of nowhere, a small swarm of men appeared on stage, some firing pistols randomly into the crowd with others laying waste to the massive speakers and other stage equipment. Scott immediately took Kim by the wrist and temporarily hid behind a pillar on stage.

"They're causing mayhem! What do we do?" Kim demanded urgently and slightly fearfully, trying to focus on Scott instead of the screams and continuing pistol shots.

"Let's go!" Scott said, seeing that security was already in action, firing their tasers. He dashed backstage with Kim in tow, freeing them from the carnage.

* * *

Amidst the chaos, Blaze Fielding ran full speed, closely followed by her friends, toward the stage. Upon hearing the first gunshots, they answered the call to action without even having to think about what could've been the reason for this massacre attempt.

 _Syndicate._ She thought hatefully.

There was no question about it. The whole thing was a mindless killing spree as a result of The Syndicate. There _was_ no reason for violence if the hellish organization was involved. This sort of thing was what prompted her to become a vigilante in the first place—to protect her city from harm. And she wasn't going to _think about_ sitting back and allow them to do it to another city.

"Security's already on it," Max observed as they neared the stage, intending to fight the thugs regardless. "But we can't let 'em have _all_ the fun!"

Blaze determinedly frowned. "You got that right, Max!" She then addressed the entire team as she neared the stage. "Let's make our presence known."

From there, the six heroes fearlessly leapt on stage and began to throw out their deadly attacks upon the thugs to combat them.

* * *

Backstage, Scott and Kim ran a shallow ways into the backstage complex, and hid in a space between two walls, per Scott's request. He had to be sure Kim was safe. Scott looked at her. She seemed like she was okay now that they were safe, but Scott still wouldn't leave her side. These criminals were bloodthirsty, and the last thing he was about to risk was his best friend's life.

Scott turned to Kim and was about to tell them that they were okay now—when the soft echo of footsteps greeted his ears. Kim silently gasped, hearing it too.

 _Shit._ Scott thought, frowning. _Thought we'd be alone back here._

Scott turned to Kim and mutely raised a finger to his lips. _"Stay here. I'll be right back."_ He mouthed, as not to give their location away.

 _"Okay."_ She nodded.

Scott summoned The Power of Understanding, pulling the massive blade from his chest in a two-handed grip. The footsteps were getting louder, indicating that the person creating the sound was drawing nearer. Without wasting any more time, Scott leapt from the hiding spot, raising his sword, ready to bring it down. . .only to stop dead in his tracks as he realized that in front of him stood a rather spooked looking Stacey Pilgrim.

She had gasped upon seeing him. "Scott! Thank God it's you!" She said shakily, hugging him tightly. Scott returned the hug, happy to see that she looked physically unharmed.

"Stacey! Ditto!" Scott said, rubbing her back in slow circles in attempt to comfort her. She began to cry. " _I—I thought those criminals we're gonna k-k-kill me!_ "

Scott suddenly became enraged. He looked her squarely in the eye. " _What?!_ Did they touch you?! Are you hurt?!" The anger wasn't directed at her, but at what they could have done to her.

" _N-no! No!_ _I managed to get away from everything and hide out in h-here. That's when I ran into y-you._ "

Relieved, Scott pulled her back into a comforting embrace, where she continued to spill her tears onto his shoulder. Kim, having heard the exchange between the siblings, silently watched them hug, a faint smile tugging at the corner of her lips, despite their current predicament. However, it soon faded completely as Kim realized that there were indeed _four_ of them that had attended the concert. Scott, Stacey, and herself only made three.

Scott realized it, too. Releasing his sister, he ran a hand through his brown hair in dreadful confusion. "Wait. . .where's Ramona? _Oh, God, where's Ramona?!_ "

"She's right here, Scott!" Kim supplied, pointing at Ramona, who was approaching. Wanting to see for himself, Scott jogged down and peered down the hallway Kim was facing, all too glad to see that his girlfriend had also managed to slip through the madness and meet up with him.

"Kim! Scott! Stacey! You guys are all here!" Ramona said elatedly, meeting Scott in a tight, short, yet loving hug. Ramona's smile faded upon its ending. "It's freaking _crazy_ out there!"

"I know!" He said, noticing that she'd already had The Power of Love drawn. He quickly inspected her for wounds. "Are you okay? God, please tell me you're okay."

"I'm fine, Scott," She nodded. "You?" A quick nod from Scott.

"Good. We need to get out of here." Ramona said, her gaze shifting between all three of them. "I didn't see any Subspace doors in any of these hallways, so we're going to have to take the long way to get out of here."

"I think I saw one when I was getting Kim out of that mess up there. We can take that one." Scott put in. Ramona nodded.

"Good. The quicker we get the hell out of this place, the better."

"No kidding," Stacey said, her fear returning. "Tomorrow, I'm staying in. Screw work."

"I don't blame you." The American courier replied.

They cautiously walked back the way Scott and Kim came, with Scott in front, Ramona in back, and Kim and Stacey between them. Scott and Ramona had their respective blades drawn as they walked, keeping alert for any displaced criminals that might've been lurking down in the halls. After rounding a few corners, the sounds of fighting became audible to the four.

"Scott, where did you see that door?" Stacey asked her brother, getting antsier by the moment.

"Umm. . ." Scott mumbled with a frown, trying to remember where, or if, he'd seen that Subspace door.

" _Goddamnit, Scott,"_ Kim hissed quietly, knowing that if she yelled, they could be found. " _Now is_ _not_ _the time for one of your retard moments! Where did you see the damn door?!_ "

"I think. . .I saw it right behind the stage, just behind the curtain, I mean." Scott said uncertainly.

"Whatever," Kim said hastily. "It's worth checking out."

The four silently crept along the hallway, knowing themselves to be closer to the stage itself. This was only justified when they saw a black curtain from a distance.

" _There's the curtain!_ " Stacey now whispered as she pointed to the curtain.

" _And there's the door!_ " Ramona said in a similar volume, nodding toward the starred door. They dashed over to it. Scott however, was feeling curious about the ongoing noises and voices that were coming from behind the curtain, and stalked off to investigate. Ramona noticed Scott's behavior and ran up to him. Kim and Stacey stood motionless and also watched, confused.

" _Scott, WHAT are you doing?_ " Ramona demanded in a whisper, tugging his arm back.

" _I'm gonna see what's up with these noises. It's been, like, forever since they started._ " Scott replied, feeling an inexplicable need to look.

" _WHAT?! Why?_ " She hissed through clenched teeth. " _There's no need to! It's probably just security getting rid of the thugs! Let's just go!_ "

" _I'll only stick my head out to look through. Nobody's gonna see me, promise._ _I'll be quick._ "

Deciding to just let him go, Ramona relented with a sigh, yet inched at a distance with The Power of Love in hand, ready to strike. She kept a close eye on her boyfriend as he looked for God knows what, all the while making sure that Kim and Stacey were safe as well. Meanwhile, Scott, true to his word, stuck his head through the curtain to see for himself what was going on. His eyes slightly widened at what he was now witnessing. The audience had long evacuated the stadium, and security was nowhere to be seen, but what he _did_ see kept him frozen in place in wonder—the noble actions of Blaze Fielding and team of fellow fighters.

" _Thunder!_ " Max roared, performing his Thunder Tackle, plowing straight through a cluster of thugs, sending them flying like ragdolls. A thug armed with a baseball bat came up from behind and tried for a sneak attack, but a glance over his enormous shoulder let Max know what the thug was up to, and the pro-wrestler threw a savage right hook into a 180 degree turn. His massive fist crashed into the punk's body, sending him skidding several feet across the massive stage, and undoubtedly killing him, proven evident as his body burst into a small amount of change.

Scott wordlessly marveled at the display of raw superhuman strength. This man, whoever he was, made it look so _easy._ But that was obviously due to his towering height and size, and the _intense_ muscles this guy had. His strength was probably on par with Lucas Lee's, the man who'd tossed him into Casa Loma's tower. His gaze wandered to the other members of this mysterious, yet equally awesome group.

Adam dodged and blocked several punches from a small group of thugs before throwing a jumping roundhouse kick, catching them all across the jaw. Seeing that he'd left them stunned as a result, he did a backwards roll, making way for Skate to finish them off.

"It's all you, bro! Take 'em out while I get these guys!" Adam said, getting up from his roll to take on more approaching thugs.

"You got it, man!" Skate skated into the spot that had previously contained Adam, and threw a leaping kick at the nearest thug. The attack struck his head, causing him to stumble. With him disoriented, Skate moved on to the next target, which was pummeled with quick punches and kicks to the stomach and chest. The thug then slumped to the ground in a dead heap, to become change soon after. The effects of Adam's kick had worn off on the last thug, who'd lunged at Skate from behind with a roar.

"Predictable bastards." Skate sneered without even turning around. He did a rather athletic backflip, which served as a brutal kick, as both his rollerblade-clad feet came down hard on the criminal's head, taking him down. This left the first thug, who'd recovered, and charged after the rollerblading teen, who simply gave a grin.

"I just gotta say it again: X should've told you. . ." He began, knocking him back with a hard punch to the chest. ". . .You don't want none of my. . ." He leapt into the air, then came back down, spinning his body on an angle like a twister. ". . . _Corkscrew Kick!_ " The attack _literally_ shredded the punk, as Skate's rollerblades dug deep into his flesh, killing him outright.

An incredibly impressed Scott viewed the spectacle wide-eyed. These two, brothers, from what Scott had heard, were absolutely a sight to see in combat. From what Scott was seeing, they looked as though they were ordinary people, devoid of any special powers, yet their fighting prowess greatly made up for it. They, especially, seemed to work well as a team, whether it be due to their obvious closeness of being brothers, or that their combat styles seemed to compliment one another's. But Scott didn't look into that _too_ much, as he looked to the remaining three fighters on stage.

"Axel, Zan," Blaze started, knocking a goon's crowbar out of his hands with a well-placed kick and taking him out with another to the head. "We've got company behind us. You two take care of them, I've got these!" Zan and Axel had been helping Blaze, who'd spotted another cluster approaching their rear. Both men knew that Blaze would be alright, so they turned to confront the approaching thugs as she directed them to. Deciding to dispose of them quickly, Axel and Zan used their respective superpowers in tandem. . .

" _Powerup!_ "

" _Grand Hook!_ "

. . .To effectively kill the advancing thugs where they stood using the Grand Hook and the Electric Reach respectively. Zan had used the wheels on his heels to propel himself forward with his electrocuted arms outstretched, while Axel had slid forward using momentum as he spun his body. His right arm was alight with fire as he did so, and he ended the attack in a powerful rising uppercut. The end result was, of course, the eradication of thugs in a bright display of electricity and flames.

With a dangerous look in her eye, Blaze charged the group of thugs that was dead set on killing her. Deciding that it would be a good idea to spread them all out, Blaze charged her chi, letting her hands glow bright with the energy before thrusting her palms fourth, hurling the chi in a bright blue beam.

" _Kikosho!_ " She cried, letting loose her attack. It was on the smaller side, but nonetheless _very_ powerful, as it sent all of the men skidding across the stage several feet, the attack having had an effect on them all. None of them died from it, however, and they practically _jumped_ back to their feet. They might as well have, given how fast they went from being on the ground, to standing once again, weapons in hand.

 _Well, hell,_ Blaze thought, a bit surprised to see them on their feet so quickly. _They got up pretty quick for regular goons. Looks like X is stepping up his game._

Blaze ducked under a crowbar swipe and pulled off a fast leg sweep, kicking the thug's legs out from under him, the impact of hitting the stage as hard as he did killing him instantly. She moved to the next one, preventing a stab by deflecting his wrist, and jumped, dropkicking him right in the face in midair. Blood sprayed. She elbowed another viciously and kicked another, landing both blows on the men's chests. They both sank to their knees—dead.

"That's enough, missy." A criminal growled, catching Blaze off guard by grabbing her from behind, locking his arms under hers. He'd done it so fast that Blaze hadn't even seen him. Or heard him, for that matter. Still, Blaze was _far_ from surrendering to this goon, and even further from being the slightest bit intimidated by his tone or words.

" _Hardly,_ " She spat, Judo throwing the punk over her shoulder. He wasn't even in the right position to be Judo tossed over the shoulder, but Blaze managed to do so using her fearsome strength. He cracked his skull on the hard surface of the stage, and died. And like the other thugs, he burst into a small amount of change.

Scott had managed to keep himself from drooling as he watched them fight, only managing to let himself shiver in amazement. These people were not only excellent fighters, they were _superhuman._ The towering, blue bodied, one barely even looked _human._ More like some kind of robot. Scott was sure he had some kind of super strength. And he _knew that_ he had the ability to generate electrical charges, based on what he saw him do to that group of men along with that blonde guy.

And speaking of, he was pretty cool, too, in Scott's eyes. Somehow, Scott got the feeling that he could relate to this dude. This probably stemmed from the fact he seemed to do a Shoryuken in one of his attacks! To, Scott, he seemed like the best fighter of the team. At least of the three. Maybe he even got his skills from videogames, too. And even if he didn't, that didn't mean he was someone to mess with. He could generate _fire_ , for God's sake! Fire!

And then there was the brunette, dressed in red. Scott found her style, (whatever it was) was brutal and hard hitting if it could draw blood like that, and those guys sure deserved it, too. He was pretty disgusted at them for trying to hit a girl, and glad that Blaze saw to it that they got theirs. As for her power though, Scott couldn't pinpoint it, unlike how it was with the other two fighters, whose powers were clear. It was light blue energy of _some_ sort. Surely not ice, though. If that were the case, those men would've frozen over upon getting hit by it. Maybe it was chi. . .like from _Street Fighter_ and _The King of Fighters_. Either way, though, she seemed resilient, and certainly far from ugly. . .but still not as good looking as Ramona. Nope.

As the brawl continued, Scott pulled his head back through the curtain to face Ramona.

"So what did you find?" She asked, quietly, but with no small amount of curiosity in her tone.

"Rammy, there are these guys out there, they're fighting the criminals." He said, jerking a thumb at the curtain. He then glanced at his bandmate and sister, who were still standing by the Subspace door, listening in on the conversation. his gaze back to Ramona "We should make sure Kim and Stacey get back safely, then I think we should give those guys out there a hand."

A initially confused Ramona arched an eyebrow, then shrugged. "Well sure, but don't you mean _security,_ Scott? There's really no need to call them 'those guys'."

"No, no, no." Scott said shaking his head. "I'm not talking about security. They're not even there."

Ramona let out a silent, brief gasp. " _What?_ Why not?"

"I don't know," Scott whisper-yelled. Not out of anger towards her. "But there are these other guys out there taking care of things. They're _wicked_ , Ramona."

Ramona blinked. "You mean, like. . . _vigilantes?_ "

" _Yeah!_ " A whisper-yell from Scott.

Ramona suddenly was suddenly hesitant to lend help. She absolutely hated the crime that had recently plagued Toronto, and wanted things to go back to normal for the city, but vigilante stuff could be dangerous. At least next to marked security units they would look like good samaritans just trying to do a good deed. Next to vigilantes, she and Scott would look like vigilantes as well. She was willing to bet that a criminal would hold more of a grudge towards a vigilante than a normal person. She and Scott could be hunted if they were mistaken as people looking to take the law into their own hands. That would be risking Scott's life, which she wasn't very eager to do. But then again, given all the videogames he played, Scott was probably aware of this. And yet, he was suggesting they do this anyway. It proved that he was highly confident in the American Ninja Delivery Girl's abilities, as well as his own. And if he thought they would be fine in the worst case scenario, then she was too.

". . .Alright, Scott." She finally said after a short silence. She unzipped her Subspace Bag, swapping out The Power of Love for her Large Hammer. Scott responded with a focused nod, and went over to the other two girls. He placed a hand on Kim's shoulder, prompting her to turn and meet his gaze.

"Kim," He started, digging in his pocket for something, and pulling out a silver key. Placing it in her hands, he resumed speaking, softly. "Here's the key to our house. My sister won't want to be home alone right after all this, so just keep her company. And call Knives and see if she can stay with you guys. For protection."

Kim nodded. "I'll do it. C'mon Stacey."

"Wait," She started, moving to embrace Scott. He gave her a tight, loving, brotherly hug.

"Be careful," She said, releasing him. "Both of you."

To everyone's surprise, Kim laid a reassuring hand on Stacey's shoulder and gave a small smile. "Hey, c'mon. They're Scott Pilgrim and Ramona Flowers."

Ramona smiled and nodded. "She's right." Scott also nodded, but in a vigorous and almost wild fashion. Though like Ramona, he had a smile to go with it.

"We'll see you guys in a little bit." Ramona said, opening the door for them, watching them as they exited through Subspace to the safety of Scott and Ramona's house.

"One question, though," Scott started, watching Ramona close the door back. "How'd you miss them coming here? The guys on stage, I mean."

The courier shrugged, leaning on the handle of her hammer, before arriving at a possible conclusion as to how she could have missed the ensuing fight on stage. "Probably because I took the back way to get to you guys rather than head front. And these backstage hallways are like a freaking maze. It's a wonder I even got to you guys as fast as I did." She hefted her weapon, a small determined expression forming on its surface before fading. Ramona's own expression turned serious. "Ready, baby?"

Scott nodded as he gripped his sword tightly, a determined expression having seized his features. His gaze burned through the curtain they now stood facing as though trying to see through directly it at what they were about to throw themselves into. "Yeah. Ready, baby."

A solid thudding noise could be heard as Axel landed a lethal forward roundhouse to a thug's temple, sending the goon doing midair spins.

"Son of a bitch," The blonde dojo owner spat, blocking a pipe swing from another with his forearm and retaliated with two punches. One to the face, another to the stomach. Upon spinning to face the opposite direction in search for more thugs, he blocked and easily pushed aside a rather lazy kick from a thug. The thug stumbled back, and prepared for another lunge at Axel, but before he could go through with it, he was separated in two on a clean diagonal angle by The Power of Understanding, whose owner leaped in from the side, saving Axel the trouble of killing the thug.

"Thanks," Axel nodded at Scott in gratitude, even though he could've easily handled the punk himself.

"No problem, man, I'm Scott." Scott introduced, taking the time to shake Axel's hand, seeing that there were currently no punks to fight.

"Axel Stone," Axel introduced, reciprocating the handshake."

" _That's_ your _name_?" Scott asked, slack jawed. " _Cooooo—_ "

"We got another wave of them coming in!" Axel heard Adam shout out before Scott could finish saying 'cool', prompting him and Scott to turn their heads to see more thugs running toward the stage.

Ramona held her weapon ready upon hearing Adam's words. When she'd jumped into the fray, she'd lashed out with her hammer, sending bodies flying.

"I don't wish to sound as though I am ungrateful, but who are you?" Zan, whom she'd assisted, asked.

"Ramona." She introduced briefly, tilting her head slightly upwards to look him in the eye.

Before Zan could offer an introduction in return, the thugs had climbed the stadium, and were on the attack once again. Before Ramona knew it, she was faced with several weapon wielding thugs. She swung her hammer repeatedly at them, smiling in satisfaction as the massive stone head slammed into them, sending each one soaring through the air like ragdolls. One even tried to outmatch her hammer swing with a swing of his own metal pipe.

 _Stupid._ Ramona thought bemusedly, following through with her swing, jaggedly tearing through the metal pipe in half with the sheer force of their swings. _They really thought a rusty old metal pipe could stand up to a_ _stone sledgehammer_ _?_

Zan used his cybernetic super strength to single-handedly haul punks through the air and into an already demolished amp, swatting away thugs that tried to interfere with him. A larger thug stormed over to him. He gave a crazed, bloodthirsty scream and charged at Zan, who simply eyed him and calmly thrusted a metal fist into his chest, shattering his ribcage, killing him.

Max, having finished off all punks in his current area, had gone over to where Skate and Adam were. They had alot of thugs to go, but they looked like they had it under control. Still, Max wasn't the type to just stand by and let his friends work while he didn't. Besides, he'd ran out of punks.

"Mind if I give you guys a hand?" Max said running over to them, already knowing the answer.

"Heh, get in here, big guy!" Adam called back, blocking a punch from a goon, before swiftly putting him down with a kick. Max grinned and charged at a rather large thug. The thug appeared not to be intimidated by Max's own size, and charged him back. Max pulled off a Power Slide, the friction carried him at a speed high enough to slam into the thug, easily managing to send him airborne.

"I'll wrap this one up for you, Max!" Skate said, just after killing a thug with a well placed backflip, skating to the thug that Max sent soaring, then jumped to meet him at _just_ the right height in relation to the ground—then killed the large thug with a perfectly aimed kick to the face.

"Yeah!" Skate cheered, glad that he'd hit his mark. He went to seek out more nearby thugs.

"Nice one, guys!" Adam called, bloodying a goon's face up with powerful knees, having caught Max and Skate's tag-team maneuver. He liked that he could multitask this way; talking to his teammates during battle felt satisfying in a certain way—like just being able to do so said something about his own combat skills. And he found it to be easier and easier each time. Apparently, the training sessions with Axel as a sparring partner were doing more for his skills than he'd thought.

Blaze seized a goon by the shirt and Judo leg threw him. He crashed into another thug in mid-flight, but still cracked his head on the hard surface of the stage, sealing his fate. Blaze spun on her heel and roundhoused another one in midair, flanked by criminals on all sides, but unwilling to let that detail stop or demoralize her. It never did, and it never would.

"We know all your little stunts, woman. Just give it up and we'll make it quick." A goon sneered from somewhere within in the small cluster. Blaze, still fighting, would've fired back a defiant remark, but instead just chose to stay silent and smirk. Because at that moment, she could practically _see_ the lightbulb over her head. She had an idea.

She set her hands alight with chi, as she would normally do when about to execute her Vertical Slash, but instead of following through with said move, she instead reared her fist back and sent it flying into the chest of a criminal. To Blaze's mild surprise, the thug heavily reeled back, even stumbling some.

 _Huh. That worked out better than I thought._ She thought to herself, the smirk having remained. _Time to put these punks to sleep._

From there, Blaze powered through them like a force of nature, downing the goons with a maximum of two chi-charged punches each. Her fists continued to crash into them, causing bones to easily crack, until shortly afterward, there _were_ no more for her to take down. They were all dead.

"Well," Blaze started, looking at everyone, who'd all taken down every thug in the area. There were also no signs of more showing up. Blaze could only assume that they'd all been taken care of, in this area, of course. She turned her gaze to Scott and Ramona, who'd already put away their respective weapons. "Now that we've taken care of that, we can all properly introduce ours—"

Before she could do or say anything else, a black info box with white, 8-bit text, popped into existence next to Blaze, startling her and her five friends.

 **Blaze developed (Unnamed Attack)!**

 **Attack +3**

 **Power +3**

 **Chi +4**

"Oh, that's totally normal." Scott said nonchalantly, eyeing the box.

"What _is_ that?" Skate surmised.

"Info box." Scott supplied. "They tell everyone when something awesome happens. Or when someone new shows up. Like in _videogames_!"

"Cool." Skate grinned.

" _Weird. . ._ " Blaze said, not exactly getting the appeal, eyeing the box as it disappeared.

"Anyway, I'm Ramona, and he's Scott." Ramona introduced somewhat unceremoniously, jerking her thumb at her boyfriend at the last part. Their respective info boxes popped up next to them.

 **Ramona V. Flowers**

 **American Ninja Delivery Girl**

 **Dating Scott**

 **Scott Pilgrim**

 **STILL 24 Years old**

 **Rating: STILL Awesome**

"And I'm _Scott Pilgrim!_ " Scott re-introduced overdramatically with a grin, throwing both fists in the air. This prompted a short, but weird silence to fall over the group.

Ramona sighed wearily. "Scott, they know. I already introduced you."

"Really?" Scott mumbled suprisedly, turning to face Ramona. "Well I hope you introduce yourself, too, Ramona. And you _do_ know that I could've introduced _myself,_ right?"

"Yeah, you _could_ have. But knowing your forgetful ass, it probably would have slipped your mind." Ramona countered, crossing her arms.

Max, sensing the love between them, despite the words they were currently sharing, smiled earnestly. "You two must be happy together."

"Yeah." Ramona smirked, ruffling Scott's hair. "He's a handful, don't get me wrong—but I love him. She wasn't about to tell them that her love extended to the point where she almost didn't help out for the sake of Scott's safety. Her feelings were true, but she still wasn't all that comfortable with putting them out there like that. Only Scott could know stuff like that.

Blaze smiled at the couple. "So, I guess we should introduce ourselves to you, huh? I'm Blaze, but you already knew that from that—"

 **Blaze Fielding**

 **Status: Leader**

 **Secretly Admires: No one. . .**

" _God!_ " Blaze yelled, once again startled by the info box that had popped up right next to her. "Does it _have_ to do that?! Well, at least it's accurate. . ."

Showing a ghost of a smile at his friend's reaction to the info box, Axel turned to introduced himself next, but it would be directed at Ramona, since Scott already knew who he was.

"I'm Axel Stone." He said shortly. After he spoke, an info box not unlike the ones they'd been seeing so far popped up next to him. He eyed his and nodded.

 **Axel Stone**

 **Nationality: American**

 **Fighting Style: "Martial Arts"**

"Adam. Adam Hunter." Adam introduced, his info box appearing right after he did so. He took a look at what it said, and gave a chuckle.

 **Adam Hunter**

 **Powers: None**

 **Badass Rating: AAA**

"The name's Max Thunder. Nice to meet ya." The towering wrestler known as Max said, with a cross of his gigantic arms. He let out a hearty laugh upon seeing the text on his box as it appeared.

 **Max Thunder**

 **Pro-Wrestler**

 **Size: MAXIMUM!**

"Name's Sammy Hunter. But people call me Skate." Skate said, giving a mere 'Yep,' upon seeing his, particularly the bottom one. He found it slightly amusing that these title cards seemed to show up _right_ after they introduced themselves. . .except for Blaze, that was.

 **Sammy Hunter**

 **Age: 14 years old**

 **Just call him Skate**

"I am Dr. Gilbert Zan. You may simply call me Zan, if that's easier." Zan introduced, his layered, cybernetic sounding voice visibly surprising Scott. Zan paid a quick glance at his info box, before directing his attention elsewhere. Though he did wonder how such a thing were possible. Videogame-like boxes of text displaying accurate information on the one it appeared next to, before vanishing? To say it was just 'Weird' as Blaze put it was an understatement.

 **Dr. Gilbert Zan**

 **Cybernetic scientist**

 **IQ: Indeterminately high**

"So, vigilantes, huh? Any chance you guys would know anything about these crimes? Y'know, since you guys put a stop to that stuff?" Ramona asked once Zan's info box had disappeared. The question wasn't really directed at any one member of the group.

"Like super totally awesome badasses!" Scott blurted out, prompting a grin and a shake of the head, both in amusement, from Skate.

"Actually, we do," Blaze answered Ramona's question with a straight face and a simple nod, deducing that the couple probably weren't vigilantes themselves based on Scott's outburst and the wording of Ramona's question. She was about to explain further, when she felt something small and hard hit her head, interrupting her. It obviously wasn't her imagination, as she could see the other members of her team, along with Ramona and Scott, getting pelted as well.

"Stupid hail," Ramona frowned, putting her goggles on and looking to the sky. She then turned to the curtain. "Come on, let's talk backstage." As the eight walked into the backstage hallways, Scott spared a short, blank glance at what could now loosely be called Kim's drum set, the instrument being crushed far beyond repairs. Several seconds later, he ran back out to the stage. Scott screamed, the fact just now registering in his brain that her drums were destroyed.

"OH MY GOD! SOMEBODY BUSTED KIM'S DRUM SET!" Scott yelled, pissed in no small degree upon seeing his bandmate's drum set completely demolished. He ran to join the others, heading straight to Ramona.

"RAMONA! DIDN'T YOU HEAR ME?! SOMEBODY BUSTED KIM'S DRUM SET!" A crazed Scott yelled, shaking Ramona by the shoulders. Before she could give any sort of response, she was pulled close by Scott, whose voice then dropped to a redundantly loud whisper as he pointed to Blaze and her friends. " _Do you think_ _ **they**_ _did it?_ "

Without waiting for an answer, Scott released Ramona and angrily faced the six vigilantes, who all stood confused. He tightly balled his fists, ready to fight should he need to. "I demand to know which one of you trashed Kim's drums! Which one of you wants to break up Shatter Band?! Huh?!

" _Dude!_ " Ramona snapped, spinning him to face her with a hand. "They didn't do it! Why would they?"

"Your girl's right, man," Skate interjected truthfully and somewhat awkwardly, although he really didn't think it was necessary to prove themselves innocent, given what was already established. "Wasn't us. . .we're, like, the good guys. . .remember?"

Scott seemed surprised about this, and after a short pause, his face broke back out into a grin, his expression no longer hostile, before going suspicious again. "So you're _sure_ you're not responsible?"

"Positive." That was Adam, not really offended by Scott's insinuation.

" _Positive?_ " Pressed Scott, raising his eyebrows for emphasis.

"Yes, Scott! They're positive!" Ramona cut in hastily. A rueful look came over her features as she faced the heroes. "I'm so sorry for. . .him. Like I said, he's a handful."

"Hey, it's no problem," Blaze laughed. "But rest assured, you don't have to worry about _us_ destroying property for no reason. The Syndicate does enough of that. Amongst lots of other things."

" _The Syndicate?_ " Ramona parroted with a raised eyebrow, about to ask more, though she wound up looking past Blaze at Zan who had been staring somewhat blankly at a Subspace door, the very same one that Kim and Stacey used to escape. "Just a minute, uh, Blaze. Hey, Dr. Zan, are you okay?" She asked curiously. It seemed to get Zan's attention, and he turned to look at Ramona, with all eyes on him.

"Yes," He said with a nod. "My built in sensors were detecting peculiar energies originating from behind this door." He'd been getting the same signals during the fight on stage, but at the time, they were fainter due to his location in relation to the door, and he was in the midst of a fight, which took the higher priority. But now that the brawl was over, he couldn't help but get once again stuck on the energy that was now making his sensors go nearly haywire.

" _Woah,_ " Scott breathed, wide-eyed. "Can you, like, _fly_ , too?"

"Not exactly. I have thrusters in my back compartments that enhance my agility. I would be too heavy to jump otherwise." Zan answered straightly.

"Oh. . ." Scott mumbled disappointedly.

"Well, the only thing behind this door is Subspace," Ramona said, lazily motioning to the door. "You can tell by the star on it."

" _Subspace?_ " Zan questioned, raising an eyebrow at the foreign term. "I'm not familiar with it."

Ramona gave an understanding nod. Her gaze then flickered to other members of Blaze's team. She now sported a wry grin. "You guys are from here, aren't you?"

"Nope. Lima. Wood Oak City." Axel responded.

Ramona blinked, having never heard of the country in her life. "Oh. I just assumed you guys were from around here since you had no idea what Subspace was. Most Canadians are oblivious to it. Guess they don't teach about it in your country's schools, either." She shrugged with a chuckle.

"So what _is_ Subspace?" Skate questioned, leaning against the wall. "Some kind of alternate dimension or something?"

"Kind of." Ramona explained. "It's a pocket dimension that's pretty much used to get yourself from place to place faster. You know how it would probably take, like, forever to get from your city to here, even on a plane?"

Skate nodded. Though in actuality, the trip from Wood Oak to Toronto didn't really take all that long. At maximum, it took about two and a half hours, but he understood her point nonetheless.

"Well, if you used Subspace, you'd probably make the trip _and_ back in 20 minutes, give or take." She finished with a smile.

"God _damn_!" Skate grinned, amazed.

"And you'd get to use these rad powers like flying and growing like, _a hundred feet tall_!" Scott enthused, outstretching his arms, and standing on his tiptoes for emphasis.

" _Fascinating. . ._ " Zan, who'd been listening intently to Ramona, muttered, astoundedly.

"Now _that's_ awesome!" Skate said.

"How do you get in, though?" Adam asked. "Need some sort of special power?"

"Nope. I mean, I'm pretty much a master on the Subspace subject, but I've never needed anything else to open a Subspace door."

Adam furrowed in confusion. ". . .then why couldn't we open the one we saw earlier today?"

"You couldn't open one?" Ramona asked, truly confused. " _Why_?"

" _Dunno._ " Adam shrugged. "This morning, Zan said his sensors were picking up weird energy around the back of our hotel, so we went around and checked it out. Turned out to be originating behind one of these Subspace doors. When we went to open it, the handle wouldn't budge, even Max couldn't get us in. Since it was harmless, we decided to leave it alone. . .but now, I'm curious to see what the real deal is with this. . . _Subspace._ "

"That's. . .actually bizarre. And you say you really can't open them? Show me." The courier insisted, the others stepping aside slightly to give Adam adequate room. They looked on as the boxer gripped the metal handle, and vainly tried to twist and pull, having absolutely no results. It was as if the handle itself was just superglued onto the door. Scott looked clueless, per usual. Ramona did too.

"Lemme try," Scott insisted, stepping up to the door with a determined face. Adam wasn't about to stop him either. Who knew? Maybe this Canadian knew something he didn't.

Scott seized hold of the handle with an iron grip and tried to twist. His face wore an expression of pure shock when he got the same results as Adam. Scott's face dropped before going fierce. Using his foot for extra leverage, he tried once again, grunting and straining loudly through gritted teeth. Despite all of this, however, the door simply refused to budge for Scott.

" _Whaaa. . .?"_ Scott panted, turning to Ramona as if she could possibly provide an explanation. " _Ramona. . .(hah). . .why. . .(hah). . .can't I open this door? I so remember doing it. . .(hah). . . (hah). . .before!_ "

Without answering, Ramona reached for the door handle. She casually twisted the handle, easily opening and closing the door as if it were any other. This, understandably, earned her collective stares from the other individuals.

" _. . .b-b-b-but, I was—, and you just—, I—_ " Scott stuttered, breaking the short, but painful silence that had befallen them. He hung his head, half-heartedly placing a hand on it. "My brain hurts. My brain hurts right now."

"So how come _I_ can still get this door open when nobody else here can?" Ramona demanded, to herself more than anyone.

"I think that's what we'd all like to know." Blaze said absently—but in thought, her detective mind scrambling to arrive at a conclusion, which was proving to be impossible, given how little she knew about the situation.

"Alright, this, _this_ is just—"

"Okay, not to sound like a douche," Scott interrupted, cutting Ramona clean off. "But can we, like, talk about something else? At least for this chapter? It's just about over, anyway." Scott then got an idea. "Why don't we just _show_ them Subspace. Maybe it'll allow us to open the doors again. And besides, my head hurts."

Ramona tasted the idea, unsure if it would work. "Show them. . .?"

"I don't see any reason not to." Zan reasoned, in his ever-calm tone. "It could very well allow us to open these doors ourselves. Besides, I'd like to see this Subspace for myself."

"And I can continue explaining the whole Syndicate deal to you. That is, like I was before you _rudely_ interrupted me." Blaze jibed lightly, giving Ramona a soft, friendly elbow to the arm. Ramona just smirked back.

"So how about it? We going in?" Blaze asked.

Ramona matched her smile, placing a hand on the door handle. "Yeah. We are."

* * *

 _ **A/N: And there's the third chapter guys! Blaze and her group have met Scott and Ramona!**_

 _ **A couple of things, though. I know Axel and Zan don't say "Powerup" and "Grand Hook" when they do the Grand Hook and the (Mobile) Electric Reach respectively, but I wanted to give them more than a grunt or a growl when they do those moves like they do in the games. Speaking of liberties being taken, Scott adding the Hurricane Kick to his arsenal (like how it is in the SP game), as well as Blaze developing the "Unnamed Attack", was a bold stride in the way of having them learn new moves and get stronger. I'm not going to make a habit of this, so it'll only have happened in this chapter, and they're the only characters that it'll happen to.**_

 _ **Also, Scott wanting to check out the fighting going on backstage was what can only be described as a "Scott moment". But it's a good thing he did! Lol. And Ramona switching topics from The Syndicate to Zan's spaced out look, was just Ramona getting sidetracked. The conversation on The Syndicate will resume in the next chapter.**_

 _ **Two more things: For the sake of this fanfic, Streets of Rage is not a "real life game." This is why Scott didn't initially recognize Blaze and her friends on stage.**_

 _ **The "stadium" in which the fight takes place was made up by me only so there could be an outdoor fight. Don't worry, the Scott Pilgrim locations from the comics will be present in this story.**_

 _ **So why couldn't Blaze, any of her friends, or Scott open the Subspace Door when only Ramona could? Where is all this going? You'll just have to find out next chapter!**_

 _ **\- Stefan442**_


	4. Chapter 4

**Streets of Toronto**

 **Chapter Four**

The Subspace Highway. A place littered with oversize, blue bricks, and golden blocks of roughly the same size, that housed varying amounts of Canadian currency, waiting to be snatched by those who wanted to claim it for themselves. The utter surrealities that _were_ flying piggy banks aimlessly soared through the air, also housing Canadian currency. Floating busted clocks and several cactus plants embedded in the flat sand were also dotted about the area, which was overlooked by a purple moon, partly obscured by stray bits of 8-bit coding.

Blaze Fielding was at a _complete_ loss for words.

In all her years of. . . _life,_ pretty much, she would've never imagined anything like _this_. And that was saying a bit of alot. She'd faced kangaroos that fought like humans, savage mutants, even seen a man live as a _brain_ in a freaking _jar_ , for Christ sake. But all that suddenly didn't seem all that abnormal right now. Reason being? She'd set foot in on a Subspace Highway—a _weird_ one at that.

" _This_. . .is so. . ." Adam slowly started, trailing off as he gazed around at his surroundings. He obviously had no idea what to make of what he saw, and Blaze was glad that she wasn't the only one totally weirded out by this.

" _Awesome?!_ " Scott said, running and bounding merrily across the stacks of blocks.

"Weird? Sketchy? Unnatural?" Max offered, gazing at the abnormally coloured moon.

"Yeah, that." Adam responded dryly.

"Good ol' rapid transit Subspace." Ramona grinned. "My bad though. Probably should've given you a heads up. Some of these Subspace Highways can get _mad_ trippy."

"I would certainly agree," Zan audibly muttered, eyeing a group of flying piggy banks as they went by. "First thugs that explode into money, then those peculiar messages coming from nowhere, and now _this_? How can something like this even _exist_? What _logic_ is there behind this?" Even with a brain that could have easily surpassed Einstein's, no matter how hard Zan tried, he couldn't make a bit of sense of some of the things he was seeing. They weren't even making footprints in the sand as they walked!

"Dude, it's all perfectly normal!" Scott called down to Zan, shattering a piggy bank in midair with a punch. "Watch your head down there!"

Zan glanced up and sidestepped the glass shards and change that fell from where Scott had landed his attack. Scott dropped to the ground and hurried to where the fallen coins sat on the sand and scooped them up.

"Sorry, man! I need to get as much money as I can while we're here. Gotta help Kim afford a new drum set. We're kinda. . .broke."

Zan assisted Scott in picking up the $6.34 that landed on the sand in front of them. After collecting half of the money while Scott had the other half, Zan deposited the coins in his metal hand into Scott's natural, organic ones.

"Thanks," Scott quickly thanked the now pensive looking elderly cyborg before stuffing the change into a side jean pocket. He turned to look for more money, only to be stopped by a titanium hand resting itself on his shoulder.

"Scott," He started, with that echoed voice.

"Uh. . .yeah?" Scott answered, a pinch of discomfort at the abrupt gesture.

"With your consent, I'd like to examine one of the coins you've just acquired."

"Oh, uh, yeah, sure." Scott muttered, gently dropping a toonie in his metal palm as they continued to walk along the path. Zan took the coin in his sharp clawlike fingers, carefully inspecting it through narrowed eyes. It seemed normal enough, but he still had the suspicion that it, along with everything else in here, was what was giving off this strange energy. Though maybe it was just the place itself.

"Damnit," Skate spat, swinging his leg up for a midair kick at one of the flying piggy banks, missing by only centimeters. "Not enough air. Yo, Scott, how do I start flying in here? Some of these pigs are too high."

"It doesn't really work like that," Ramona called back, retaining her relaxed stride across the unnaturally flat sand. "You can only do that kind of stuff in Mind Subspace, not the regular kind. Mind Subspace is like this one, only it's in your own mind. You can access it through dreams."

"Huh. Sweet," Skate replied with a bit of a smile in his tone, having heard the entire breakdown, which he found pretty interesting, and cool. His tone dropped to a conflicted mutter as he eyed at the flying banks. "Guess for now I'll just have to get to high ground like Scott."

"Hey, Skate," Max called, eyeing a group of banks approaching. "Still need a boost?"

"Heh, thanks Max!" Skate thanked, turning around and tucking himself into a ball in front of Max, who scooped him up in his palms. It proved to be a rather easy task, due to both Max's inhuman strength, and Skate's compact size. **('Cause he's like, 14! Duh!)**

"Goin, up!" He said, tossing Skate in an underhand way, his aim perfect. Skate, doing multiple frontflips still tucked up, soared above everyone and toward the line of four flying banks. Skate's bodily posture and aerial movement would have the same effect as a Dynamite Headbutt would, allowing him to plow seamlessly through the banks—which he did.

"Watch your heads!" Skate called, still doing cannonball flips through the air. Shards of pink glass and change rained down on the sand below. Those who'd been directly below Skate's general area, either stepped to the side or put their heads down to avoid being hit.

"Aw, man, that was awesome!" Skate laughed mirthfully, retrieving his $20.76 upon landing cleanly. "Subspace rocks."

Ramona smiled at his reaction to the place, only the slightest bit surprised that he seemed to warm up to Subspace faster than some of the other heroes. Curiously, she turned to Axel, who was walking a pace or two behind her. "You've been quiet, Axel. What's your verdict on this place?"

Axel, who had been treading across the sand with a content look on his face, responsively met Ramona's eyes. "Well, I'm a gamer, myself, so this is all actually pretty cool."

Max, knowing his best friend, shook his head with a smile. _Figures, Axel._

"Then you probably know what the hell you're looking at." Blaze muttered, just loud enough for Axel to hear—and chuckle in response to. "I feel like I'm on acid right now."

"Glad you're warming up to Subspace." Ramona snarked good-naturedly.

" _Dude_! You play videogames?!" Scott asked, addressing Axel. He saw another flying piggy bank. "Check this out. I know you'll think this is awesome. Just watch." When it was _just_ about to be right under him, Scott once again did a Shoryuken, getting the timing perfect, coming in contact with the bank and easily shattering it.

" _Whoa!_ " Skate exclaimed, not expecting to see Scott do something literally out of one of his fighting games.

"Heh. The Shoryuken," Axel chuckled, surprised as well. "Nice, man, nice."

"Yeah, I know right?! Too bad I can only do Ryu's version of it, and not Ken's, like you, dude." Scott said, retrieving his $1.63, his words eliciting a laugh from Axel.

"So you saw that, huh?" He inquired, raising an eyebrow. "We'll, it's not exactly a Shoryuken. I call it the Grand Hook."

"Hold up," Blaze cut in, addressing Scott—she _had_ to if he was implying what she thought he was—but she wasn't sure. "Are you saying that that uppercut you just did was from a _videogame_?"

"Yeah!" Scott nodded, confirming Blaze's suspicions. She'd thought she'd heard people associate those two names with uppercuts once on some game channel she'd seen a quick two seconds of while channel surfing one night.

"He does this all the time. He learns to fight by copying what he sees from videogames." Ramona informed, shaking her head. "Personally, I don't get it."

Adam curiously arched an eyebrow. "And how does that work out for you, Scott?"

"Well, I _am_ the best fighter in the province!" Scott grinned proudly.

"You are?" Adam asked Scott, somewhat skeptically as he eyed his form up and down. He didn't look like he'd trained a day in his life—hell, just by looking at his chest area, he could tell that he did extremely little to no training.

"Uh, dude, are you trying to like, come onto me? Cause I'm totally taken." Scott asked uncomfortably, completely misinterpreting Adam's gaze.

"Wait, _what_? No!" Adam exclaimed, taken aback by Scott's accusation. "I was only looking at your chest area because it doesn't seem like you have any that many muscles, if. . .any, really. I was wondering how that could be possible if you're constantly training. Kinda weird for the best fighter of a province, don't you think?"

"Oh, I don't train like other people, I just keep playing fighting games!" Scott explained gleefully.

Adam blinked, now clearly skeptical that he was as good as he said he was if _that's_ how he trained. "And. . . _that_ helps you effectively hone your skills?"

"Yeah! You should try it! It requires absolutely ZERO effort, and makes you fight like a total boss!" Scott extolled.

Adam, though still a bit disbelieving, merely cracked a smile and shrugged. "Hey, whatever works, works, I guess."

"Almost thought you were into hipsters for a second there, bro." Skate cracked, referencing the earlier misunderstanding.

"Can we talk about something else now?" Scott asked uncomfortably, wanting to ditch the subject, yet secretly shivering in glee. Skate silently snickered at his words.

"Well, I still can't figure out why you guys can't open Subspace doors. . ." Ramona said thoughtfully, rubbing her chin. "Our friends have been able to get into Subspace just fine on their own. . .Scott, when was the last time you used Subspace, before just now, I mean."

"Uhh. . . ." Scott mumbled, cluelessly, vainly trying to remember.

"Nevermind actually," Ramona said quickly, before lapsing back into thought.

"I have _absolutely_ no idea how this place works, but. . .who knows, maybe us being here now will allow us to open the doors, like you said." Blaze shrugged slightly.

"Maybe. . ." Ramona half-unconsciously answered, still in a contemplative state.

"Where are we even going, Ramona?" Scott asked.

"Home, remember? Our new friends are staying with us until the hail stops."

"Thanks, Ramona." Blaze said gratefully, liking the idea of not having to withstand hail very much, and even happier that she and her friends were thought of as friends by Ramona. A smile started to make its way across her lips. "We appreciate it."

"Don't mention it," She dismissed kind-heartedly with a wave. "Ah, there's our door."

Jogging at an increased pace due to anxiousness of the soon-to be-had results, the group approached the aforementioned Subspace door that would bring them back to their yard.

"Time to see if this worked. Axel, you haven't tried yet. Can you see what you can do with this door?" Blaze said, nudging Axel slightly. He nodded, and reached out to grab the door. He wrapped his hands around the handle and twisted his wrist—only for the door to not budge a single inch.

Axel growled. "Damn door. Why won't it open?" He said, beginning to get pissed.

"Chill out, there, dude." Adam said, noticing the slight incline in his friend's voice. "We'll get this whole Subspace shit sorted out in time."

Axel nodded, forcing the Subspace mystery to the back of his mind for now, everyone else seeming to do the same. "Yeah. We should also explain what's happening to Toronto as soon as we get back to Scott's and Ramona's."

"I think the girls back at the house would like to know what's happening, also." Scott added before giving a drawn out moan in dreadful realization. "Oh man, I've also gotta give Kim the bad news. . .hope she's not too mad about those dudes destroying her drums. If she tries to kill me, save me, guys. I'm too young and cool to die."

Zan merely gave a silent chuckle at how seriously Scott seemed to take this, or rather his friend, Kim, apparently did.

"These young musicians nowadays truly are something else." He said, a touch of amusement in his voice.

"Dude, you seriously have NO idea." Ramona responded with a practically audible smirk.

Inside the couple's residence, Stacey and Kim were seated on the couch, safe, courtesy of Knives, who now donned her combat garb, consisting of a one-piece sleeveless bodysuit, near-shoulder length fingerless gloves, and a blue and yellow striped scarf. They were all sitting around chatting idly, able to now that Stacey was back to her normal self, when they heard the sound of the front door open. When they saw the foot of a person through the doorway, Knives immediately went on the offensive, drawing a distictive sai-like knife and hurling it with alarming force at where she assumed would be the person's head, lodging the knife in the door in the process. She instantly regretted it when she heard Scott yelp out in surprise.

" _Dude_! It's just me!" Scott yelled, glaring at Knives.

" _Sorry_!" Knives apologized briefly, yet sincerely, holding her hands to her face. "Totally thought it was some criminal!"

"It's cool," He said with a final sigh, going around to the other side of the door, prying out the knife that was embedded in it. The others filed in soon afterwards as Scott tossed the knife back to its owner, who caught it. "Thanks for coming over, though, Knives."

"Oh, it was no biggie," She said with a little wave, before remembering her earlier facade to Scott. "My, uh, training, had uh, ended a little early, so my dad let me come over. Good thing."

"Nice house, guys." Adam complimented, gazing around at the neat house.

"Thanks," Scott and Ramona replied simultaneously. The former noting that his sister looked unharmed, insinuating that nothing had gone down in their absence.

"So I guess you're the guys that saved the stadium or something?" Kim questioned disinterestedly.

"That's us." Blaze nodded. She was about to introduce her and her friends, but Ramona beat her to it.

"Kim, Stacey, Knives, this is Blaze, Axel, Adam, Skate, Max, and Dr. Zan." The courier said, pointing to each respective member of the team as she said their name.

"That's cool. I'm Stacey. Thanks for getting rid of those criminals. They were real dicks.

 **Stacey Pilgrim**

 **Scott Pilgrim's younger sister**

 **Rated T for teen**

"Hey! I'm, uh, Knives Chau, I guess." Knives introduced awkwardly, yet energetically with a rapid wave.

 **Knives Chau**

 **18 years old**

 **Personality: Way too hyper**

"Kim." The redhead simply stated in a tone that was in between a mumble and a grunt.

 **Kim Pine**

 **Drummer**

 **Likes: Nobody**

"It's a pleasure to meet you all," Zan greeted mannerfully and inclusively, despite seeing Kim's info box. "However, at the moment, we have some rather unpleasant news."

"That's right, Zan." Blaze nodded. "A criminal organization called The Syndicate has moved its operations here in Toronto. It's the reason your stadium was attacked."

The girls on the couch (including Scott, and barring Kim), looked surprised at this. An organization being connected with the crimes was about the last thing they expected. They'd all just thought they were nothing more than random acts of violence and assholery, but they were mistaken, as there was nothing random about these crimes whatsoever. Ramona frowned, remembering when Blaze had mentioned the name earlier backstage.

"That's actually not that hard to believe." Ramona stated matter-of-factly.

"What? Don't tell me you _knew_ that there would be a crime syndicate involved! I don't think _any_ of us knew!" Stacey exclaimed.

"It crossed my mind, I mean." Ramona clarified, now looking at Stacey. "When these crimes first started, I just figured they were just ordinary assholes causing trouble. But when they continued, I kind of had a little suspicion that there might've been a gang or a crime ring involved. They weren't too uncommon back home, and I guess I was just reminded of my roots. I actually ended up shrugging it off for a while, but when Blaze mentioned it was true, I actually couldn't believe I was right."

The story made Adam curious. "Where'd you live?"

Despite legitimately seeing them as friends, Ramona didn't particularly want to disclose such information to them just yet. It wasn't anything personal, but merely her mysterious nature wanting to keep things under wraps until she knew them a bit better. She tended to get like that when she'd met someone new. "Around, I guess."

Catching how Ramona responded, Adam simply nodded and respectfully let the subject drop. "Ah,"

"So, uh. . .who leads it?" Knives referred to The Syndicate, suddenly feeling as though she'd been pulled into another world.

"A guy named Mr. X." Axel responded, his voice turning hateful. "He's a sick, power seeking bastard that doesn't know when to call it quits."

"So you've had to deal with him more than once. What, did he break out of jail?" Kim deadpanned. Axel scoffed.

"He owned the police, government, hell, he owned the whole city. Trying to have him arrested was pointless. Blaze, Adam and I had to take matters into our own hands and kill him ourselves."

"And he just keeps coming back to life?" Ramona asked, causing Axel to give a nod as a response.

"Yep. About every year or so after we take him down, he's back from the dead. Good as new."

"Whoa! He's like, _immortal_!" Scott said, wide-eyed.

"A seemingly supernatural case of Lazarus Syndrome would be more like it, "Zan responded, sharing Axel's frustration. Upon seeing the completely lost look on Scott's face, he decided to explain. "An extremely rare case where a dead body is able to resurrect itself."

"That can actually _happen_?" Stacey asked, visibly disturbed. "That's some _unnatural_ stuff right there.

"Woah! It's like when I got that extra life!" Scott said, wide-eyed and amazed, much to the utter confusion of the six vigilantes standing in the room. Scott went to explain.

"I killed this one guy once, and he left behind an extra life, and I took it, and came back to life when I got stabbed! It was pretty rad!"

"Oh and don't worry about Scott's, uh, killing. The guy he killed totally deserved it, plus, he was a total dick." Ramona jumped in. "But that's another story for another time. Keep telling us about The Syndicate and Mr. X."

"Just. . .answer me one thing real quick. Will one of you tell me who the hell had the idea to let a kid on your team?" Kim cut in critically, unable to hold in the question any longer. She briefly eyed the team collectively, before resting her gaze on Skate. "Isn't it, like, past your bedtime?"

Offended, Skate glared intensely at the impassive redhead. "Hey! I might not be grown yet, but I ain't useless, red! And it was _my_ idea to join the team when my bro was kidnapped!"

Kim seemed to soften at this. Not at Skate's tone, but rather at his words alone. "Your. . .brother was kidnapped?"

"Yeah. Year after we beat Mr. X the first time. Bastard got his right-hand man to snatch me up." That was Adam.

"Oh." Kim muttered, now looking at Adam, her tone now full of genuine empathy rather than her usual cynicism. "Well. . .I'm sorry."

"S'okay," Adam shrugged with an amiable smile. "I got out just fine thanks to these guys. And I even got to get my licks in on him later down the road. So it's all good."

Kim nodded wordlessly. Still, Adam had to wonder what caused the sudden change of attitude in this Kim Pine. He was almost certain that she'd experienced a similar situation before, but if Ramona was any indication, it would be best to just leave the subject be. So he did just that.

"So has he done anything else?" Scott inquired.

"Yeah," Max nodded. "Personally—and I think I speak for everyone on this team when I say this—I think his third one was _way_ worse than the last two endeavors. Taking over the city—bad, kidnapping Adam—bad, but what he did the third time was on a _whole_ new scale, man."

"What'd he _do_?" Scott hoarsely managed to get out, engrossed in the story."

"You wanna tell 'em, Blaze?" Max asked considerately. He may have been a contributing member of the team, but he felt as though this one was reserved for the leader.

"Sure," She replied, glancing back at Max. She turned back to facing Kim, Knives, and Stacey on the couch. Her tone becoming grave with her next words. "X tried to start a nuclear war."

This visibly shocked the Canadian residents in the room. Scott and Ramona spun to look at the vigilantes, taken aback, while Knives and Stacy also now donned incredibly surprised looks. Much like how she'd reacted at the news of Gideon's return, even Kim couldn't resist keeping a subdued surprised look off of her freckled features.

"He. . .was gonna start a nuclear war?" The redhead repeated in disbelief. While the feeling was mild, it still took a lot to surprise _Kim,_ even in the slightest _,_ of all people. Upon first hearing of Mr. X when Axel had first referenced him, Kim thought of him as no more than typical, run-of-the-mill, crime boss, but hearing about waging nuclear warfare changed that view instantly. That wasn't something that ordinary crime bosses just _did._

Blaze nodded. "Yeah. And he would've won, too. Not only was he going to use robots in his army instead of human beings, but he had a hell of an ace up his sleeve that would've guaranteed total victory: Rakushin. An extremely powerful chemical that explodes when it rots. We found out that little tidbit the hard way when some exploded in our city. 30,000 killed, 60,000 wounded."

" _Sweet Jesus. . ._ " Ramona audibly whispered.

" _God_." Stacey said, wincing in sheer sympathetic pain for the unfortunate victims of the explosion. Knives said nothing, but lowered her head wanly and shook it depressingly slowly. Kim stared ahead. Her expression unreadable.

"Wow. . .that's kind of. . . _sad_." Scott said sullenly, looking at his feet. He then looked up confusedly. "Wait. . .30,000 and 60,000 what?"

Ramona sighed, running a hand across her face. Kim however seethed at his cluelessness.

" _People_ , you retard." She growled through gnashed teeth.

"Oh. . ." He mumbled, wheels in his head practically visible as it registered to him. " _OH MY GOSH THAT'S HORRIBLE_!" He yelled suddenly, and erratically, startling the ever-living hell out of Blaze.

"Yeah, radioactive stuff is no joke." She said, having recovered from the shock of Scott's outburst. With that, she continued. "Anyway, X managed to get his hands on some, and put large amounts of it in bombs, which he would have his goons scatter around the city and set to explode."

"But, how would detonating bombs in your own city with that _Raku_ -whatever stuff help him jump start a war?" Knives asked, legitimately confused.

"Well, he wanted war to smuggle Rakushin, but our nation's military General was an obstacle to his ambitions. See, he wasn't corrupt, and was actually a good leader, trying to avoid getting into unnecessary disputes with the other Lima Nations. So X kidnapped him, and replaced him with an imposter, who he sent to announce to the public that we were going to take military action against the Nations X had gotten us in a dispute with. So we split up, Adam went to take down and expose the fake General, while the rest of us went to deal with X. Of course, we were all surprised when we saw that he was just a brain in a container _._ " Blaze finished.

" _Gross_! Why would he want to turn himself into a _brain_?!" Stacey said, flinching at the thought.

Blaze chuckled. "He didn't have a choice! We messed him up so bad for kidnapping Adam, that he couldn't salvage his body when he came back to life."

"Well geez. Guess the third time around was an easy fight then, huh?" Ramona smirked cheekily.

"Oh, God no," Blaze chuckled, lowering her head and shaking it slightly. She found Ramona's question to be extremely ironic. "He was planning on using a giant mech that he called Neo X. Managed to control its every move with his mind alone. That's how he fought us, and it's how he would've ruled our city from a glass jar. Adam had finished up with the General right when we got finished with Neo X, and picked us up in a chopper. Good thing, too, because X rigged the base to explode." She turned to Adam with an ever grateful smile. "Thanks again for that, Adam."

"Hey, what kind of jerk let's his best friends and little brother get blown up?" Adam smiled back, placing a hand on Skate's shoulder.

"Heh, the _true_ ones!" Skate said, looking up at his elder brother, who took off his hat just to ruffle his dark hair, putting it back on afterwards.

"Little brothers, right?" Stacey asked Adam with a chuckle.

"Yeah, you gotta love 'em, no matter how annoying they can get."

" _Tch_ , believe me, I try, but it's hard." Stacey playfully returned.

" _Heyy. . ._ " Scott whined.

"I was just joking, you idiot." Stacey snapped, though a smirk easily played across her lips. "You know I love you."

"But yeah," Axel said, picking up where Blaze left off. "After we managed to avert the war, X had the city corrupted again. He went back to bribing the city's major officials, police, and he even built a baseball stadium and funded a park to make himself look good to the public. He had everybody fooled with that crap, but a leopard can't change its spots, and we all knew it. So we hit the streets and did some digging, and managed to get our hands on some evidence of all the officials that he'd corrupted. After we killed him, that is. And the best part of it was that that evidence we found didn't just prove X and all those other people guilty, but it also proved us innocent." He finished.

Ramona folded her arms and nodded. "Impressive. You guys definitely know how to get shit done."

"Yeah! You're like. . . _superheroes_!" Scott praised. He then turned to the towering wrestler, Max. "Especially you, Max. Did you get, like, exposed to Gamma Radiation or something?"

Max laughed, flexing a huge arm. "Nah, man. I prefer pumping iron the old fashioned way."

With a roll of her eyes, Ramona smiled, and addressed Max. "Sorry. He's a total geek. He even made an X-Men patch for his jacket. The one he's wearing right now."

" _H-hey_!" Scott stuttered flusteredly. "You have _no_ evidence of that, Ramona!"

Blaze shook her head, smiling. "So anyway, we received some info that X was located here not to long ago. Yesterday even. We flew out here because we—"

"You _FLEW_?! Like actual _flying_?! _With wings?!"_ Scott blurted out.

"No. . .I meant on a plane. You know, _Delta Airlines_?" The brunette tried awkwardly. Scott simply stared ahead dumbly, obviously not following. Blaze decided to move on with her thought. "Anyway, we decided to fly out here because X wanted to take over an area where he thought nobody would stand in his way. And we especially came knowing what that excuse of a man is willing to do to get it."

"And do you know what's awesome about it all?" Scott said, grinning.

"Is it that we get to bust tons of heads in the process?" Max smirked. "'Cause if that's it, I'm with ya all the way, Scotty."

" _Nooooo. . ._ " Scott drawled playfully as he waved a finger, the grin on his face heavily implying that he knew something the others didn't.

"Then again, no. What?" Blaze asked, clearly confused, and by the way everybody's—well, except Kim's—eyes were on him at that moment, she could tell that everyone else was too.

Standing proud with hands on hips, Scott ran to the center of the room and delivered his response.

"I, Scott Pilgrim, will be helping you, Blaze Fielding, and your friends destroy Mr. X _for good_!"

The aforementioned group of vigilantes were slightly stunned (if not slightly amused) not only by Scott's manner of speech, but were moreso surprised at what had just said. They all eyed him curiously, yet earnestly.

"You will?" Came Axel's inquisitive reply. "Don't get me wrong, we appreciate the help. You just don't seem like the vigilante type, is all."

"Well, I'm not, really," Scott admitted. "But it'll be awesome getting to beat up gang members all the time! Like in. . .the funnest videogame, like, _ever_! Only in real life!"

"The funnest videogame ever, huh?" Blaze chuckled, quoting Scott. The words were actually fairly intelligent-sounding on her lips. "Well, if you think you're up to it, welcome to the team, Scott."

" **YES!** " Scott shouted, tightly shutting his eyes and throwing both fists skyward in victory.

 **SCOTT PILGRIM HAS JOINED THE TEAM**

"I've still yet to understand that." Zan mumbled somewhat pensively in response to the Info box blinking into existence.

" _I've_ got yet to get used to that." Blaze snorted, half expecting it to appear. The suddenness of it didn't startle her anymore, but she still found the mere sight of them to be jarring.

"Wait." Ramona said suddenly and firmly, inviting the eyes of everyone in the room.

"What is it, Ramona?" Scott inquired, watching as his girlfriend took a seat on the loveseat beside him.

"Scott, you beat the Exes while I just hung back. For the most part. I know I helped with Gideon in the end, but I know I could've helped you in alot of the other the situations my past has put you in. And I feel partly responsible for every injury that you've sustained trying to fight them. Like I said yesterday, I'm finally stepping up and fighting by your side. Besides, we're a couple. I've realized that that means I've gotta always be by your side, that includes with this whole Syndicate deal." She said strongly, gripping Scott's hand before swiveling slightly to face Blaze with a serious expression. "Blaze, If Scott's gonna be helping you beat The Syndicate, then I want in, too."

Blaze, very much liking the loyalty Ramona showed toward Scott by asking to join, simply nodded. "Then consider yourself in."

 **RAMONA FLOWERS HAS JOINED THE TEAM**

When Ramona saw the Info box appear just as Scott's did, she felt good inside. She knew she would finally be taking a step toward being a better girlfriend. Scott would do anything for her, even fight her seven superhumanly superpowered Evil Exes, and fighting The Syndicate with him would be a good way to _prove_ she felt the same way. To him and herself. She looked to Scott for his reaction, which was no less than to envelop her in a tight, warm, and loving hug.

Suddenly, Ramona let out a noise and unconsciously pushed Scott away, feeling an an odd sensation. She gazed down at her chest and saw a thinly swirling golden vortex of sorts. A brown handle of what could be assumed to be a sword peeked through. Scott, knew exactly what was happening and nodded to Ramona, who understood the message and nodded in response.

" _Whoa! What the hell's happening to her?!_ " Skate bellowed. His eyes were wide with alarm, as were his teammates', who could only watch the bizarre scene unfold before their very eyes.

"It's alright." Scott said calmly, holding out a palm to reassure them. "This is good. Awesome, even. She needs to do this."

Ramona grasped the handle and pulled, the weapon painlessly slipping from the vortex swirling in the area right over her heart. Pulling the instrument completely out of her chest, she could see that it was in fact, a sword. A pristine sword with a perfectly straight blade crafted from pure platinum, she could tell. It was ninjato-like in its appearance, much unlike The Power of Love, a more katana-like sword. She held it up in a grand fashion, letting the platinum blade gleam in the light.

 **Ramona has earned The Power of Loyalty!**

 **Heart +5**

 **Will +4**

 **Skill +5.5**

"Anybody wanna explain what just happened? I mean, I _think_ I know, but. . ." Adam trailed off, having lost his voice.

"By showing and proving my loyalty to Scott, I can now use this new sword, The Power of Loyalty." Ramona explained, turning the blade over, continuing to let the light dance across it. "Heh. The end of the handle even has a star on it. Matches my ring."

"The same thing happened to me when I told Ramona I loved her! Only mine was The Power of Love. Scott said, before hanging his head and beginning to complain to Ramona. "Aww, you've got _two_ swords now, and I only got _one_! Bull!"

" _So_. . .you're telling me that this happens on a regular?" Blaze questioned, her and her friends (barring Zan, of course) starting to get some understanding of what just happened.

"You know, just what is it with you people and producing weapons from your bodies?" Kim asked with narrowed eyes, indirectly answering Blaze's question to some degree.

"I can't help but to agree with Kim," Zan said, his elderly features slightly scrunched in sheer thought for what felt like the millionth time today. "Pulling a sword out of your chest clearly should have been fatal. . .and you two say that you are able to perform such physical feats from your emotions alone?"

Scott and Ramona shared a look.

"Uh. . .yeah." Ramona and Scott replied in unison.

"I find that especially. . .intriguing." The doctor said thoughtfully. "In my years, others have told me that strength can draw from emotions, and I know this to be nothing short of the truth. However, never had I expected it to be done in a manner that you two present."

"Hold up, hold up. . .if that's how those swords work, then how come I didn't get The Power of Love when me and Scott were dating?" Knives frowned, turning her body slightly to face Ramona, as if she held the answer. Ramona didn't really know herself, the only explanation she could have come up with being that the feelings had to be reciprocal, which in their case, were not. She found herself wanting to speak her mind to Knives. She couldn't explain it, but she wasn't about to stop herself, either.

"Well, Knives—"

" _Hey-hey_!" Scott laughingly interrupted in a way that would arouse suspicion, wrapping an arm around his girlfriend. Isn't this awesome?! Rammy got a new sword! Cause she promised to never leave my side, and stuff! Heh, right?" He finished softly.

Ramona cast a knowing glance at Scott. She could tell he had the same theory on the workings on how one could pull weapons from within their own being. And she theorized that it was because he wanted to leave the past in the past, if only to keep Knives from getting upset. Ultimately however, she decided to just leave it, at least for now.

"Look, this is all swell and good, and I _am_ happy for you Ramona, but you _know_ Gideon's back," Stacey began to chide, showing concern, albeit, in a somewhat blunt way. "How are you guys going to juggle fighting The Exes _and_ The Syndicate? Even with that new weird sword, I think you've put too much on your plates."

"The what?" Blaze raised an eyebrow, her tone a blend of confusion and interest.

"The League of Evil Exes _._ " Ramona clarified. "A group of seven of my exes joined together and were bent on keeping me and Scott apart. Scott managed to defeat them, and we thought we were rid of them, but I had a run-in with their leader, Gideon, yesterday, who told me they'd reformed."

"Wait. . .you dated seven _villains_?" Skate asked, raising both his eyebrows in sheer perplexity. " _Huh_?"

"They weren't evil until Gideon formed The League of Evil Ex Boyfriends. They were pretty tough, and one of them was even a _g-g-girl_ ," Scott stuttered, visibly shivering with glee, to the confusion of the six vigilantes. "but I still beat them all for Ramona like a total boss!"

Ramona glared at Scott, miffed at his tactless mention of her bi-curious phase, but nonetheless reminded him of what else Gideon had told her. "But they're driven by revenge this time, Scott. They'll stop at nothing to kill you. And they've learned from their mistakes—meaning we'll have to be more careful and probably come at them differently."

After a tiny silence, the courier then faced Wood Oak City's heroes with mild apprehension. She had never even heard of Lima, much less did she know how its residents viewed homosexuality. "And yeah, I, uh, hope you guys don't, like, hate me for going out with another. . .yeah."

"'Course not." Axel assured with a relaxed shrug. "Straight, gay, bi—doesn't matter."

"Yeah. Long as you're not on X's payroll, you're cool with me." Max joined with a smile.

"Heh, good to know," Ramona responded saucily, yet the smile on her face that accompanied it added its own silent 'thank you' that was appreciated by Axel and Max. She then gave a small wave of dismissal. "And it was just a stupid phase, anyway, so. . .y'know."

"Need a hand dealing with these guys?" Blaze offered. "I mean, if you say they're gonna be tougher to handle this time, I would assume it wouldn't hurt to have some extra help."

"That. . .would actually be awesome. Thank you, Blaze." Ramona said with a grateful smile.

 **BLAZE AND HER FRIENDS ARE HELPING SCOTT AND RAMONA DEFEAT THE (totally douchebaggy) LEAGUE OF EVIL EXES**

"Blaze, are you sure that this is a wise decision? I see it as a necessity that we all be at our zenith when the inevitable confrontation with Mr. X arrives. Don't you think taking on another task would deprive us of that?" Zan cautioned, not entirely realizing that his voice had hardened substantially, reaching the grittiness capable of hinting of a personal vendetta. Zan knew full well that X's hand-to-hand abilities were extraordinary—almost to the point of being frightening, from close-up personal experience. And with above-average physical strength, and that gun of his, he was more than a force to be reckoned with. Zan wasn't trying to come across as uncaring to Scott and Ramona's predicament, he was merely trying to ensure that he and the team would be able to put X back where he belonged: Hell.

"I'm sure it's the right thing, Zan." She nodded confidently. "We may have to do more going around, but we'll still be able to rest. If we have to, we'll even take a short break mid-task to head back to the hotel to sleep, and pick it back up first thing in the morning. But we're helping Scott and Ramona. It's the least we can do since they're helping us. And don't worry, we'll be ready for X."

Zan gave a slight nod. A small part of him was still doubting her, but Blaze hadn't ever steered them wrong in the past. Even before she was the leader of the group, Blaze was never without abandon in how she handled herself. For the time being, he decided not to voice his concern any further.

"So how about now, big sis? Wait, hold on. . .ummm. . .aha! So how about now, LITTLE sis?" He corrected, pointing at her triumphantly. Stacey rolled her eyes. "Blaze and her friends are helping us! That makes like, ten of us now!"

"No, it doesn't, little brother." Stacey said smoothly.

"Does too! L-look! Me and Rammy make two, and. . ." Scott trailed off, attempting to count on his fingers in attempt to prove his point, to absolutely no avail. Adam barely suppressed a laugh.

"I still think you're spreading yourselves too thin, even if there's six vigilantes helping you two." Stacey said, facing Ramona with a slight purse of the lips. Everyone knew it was entirely out of concern for the couple, but still, Ramona was curious.

"And how many more people do we need to gain your consent?" Ramona replied half-jokingly, crossing her arms.

"I dunno. . .like, maybe, one more, I guess?" Stacey answered rather uncertainly with a shrug.

"What do you think?" Scott asked Ramona. "Do you think we should see if we should get another person to fight with us?"

Ramona's mind flashed back to the encounter with Gideon.

 _We've learned from our failures, and with revenge fueling us, we can't lose._

She frowned, heeding his warning. "Stacey may have a point. You know how the Exes are." She was glad to see that Scott was willing to include her in a big decision such as this instead of just making a hasty choice like he sometimes tended towards. She was in the midst of turning her gaze toward Knives when Stacey briefly interjected her thought process.

"Told you!" She chirped.

"But who do we know that can fight that hasn't tried to kill me?" Scott replied, ignoring his sister's comment. Completely unsure as to where to begin looking, Scott tightly shut his eyes and tried to concentrate. Knives felt invisible all of a sudden. After all, she hadn't ever tried to kill Scott, (nor would she ever), she could fight, couldn't she? Even if Ramona had beaten her. . .twice. . .that wasn't saying that she herself was a crappy fighter. It just said that Ramona was a better fighter. Whether she was fighting with or without her namesakes, Knives could do some serious damage. And besides, she liked to think that her sneak attack on a certain ex of Scott's was pretty cool. . .even if she did end up unintentionally flinging herself into the wall in the process.

The petite Asian looked at Scott and figured he was just being. . .Scott in forgetting about her awesome abilities. He was often like that. So to help him out, Knives let out an obvious sigh from where she sat on the couch in a completely failed attempt to get Scott's attention. Knives let out another sigh, deliberately louder and longer this time, propping her face up on her fists. Still nothing. Knives let out a huff of frustration that Scott also failed to acknowledge before sighing a third time, this one the loudest and by far the most obvious of them all, to the point where she was nearly straining her vocal chords.

"Bored, Knives?" Skate cracked, grinning.

Despite her current frustration, Knives found it impossible not to manage a tiny laugh and a smile at the boy's wisecrack.

"She must be," Scott said, still in the midst of trying to think of someone else to help them. "She keeps on sighing! It's kinda makes it hard to think, really. . ."

"Maybe she's trying to send your dumb ass a message," Kim monotoned.

"Huh? You mean like a text message?" Scott muttered, scratching his head. "I don't get it. . ."

Knives finally facepalmed, everyone else in the room not far from doing the same.

" _Idiot_!" Kim shouted, harshly addressing Scott. "She wants to help you and Ramona!"

Scott blinked. "You do, Knives?"

"Yesss!" Came Knives remark, before she clasped her small hands together in a pleading gesture. "Can I?"

"Uh, sure. . .if you want." Scott answered unsteadily.

" _YES_! _Attack Hug_!" She cried happily, wrapping him in a crushing hug.

" _Urg_! C-an't breathe, K-knives!" A red-faced Scott choked out, weakly reaching for Ramona with one hand. The aforementioned girl did nothing to help, having an unreadable expression on her face. Knives finally released him.

"But, uh, Knives, not that I don't appreciate it, but why do you wanna help us?" Scott wondered, furrowing in confusion.

"Don't you get it, you goof?" Knives giggled. "We may not be together anymore, but I still love you. And. . .you do anything for the people you love."

 _Yeah. Anything but supporting them by going to their crappy concerts_. Ramona thought sardonically while resisting the urge to roll her eyes. Such a gesture, while somewhat subtle, had a risk of drawing attention. Ramona's head started to glow dully before the faint aura subsided instantaneously after. It was so dull that nobody in the room seemed to notice, though at the same time, Zan's sensors were triggered briefly. The elderly cyborg blinked in confusion. Never before had his sensors gone off for just a brief second. His eyes searched the room for anything that could've caused it, yet he managed to find nothing. He decided to dismiss the incident for now.

"Wait! If Scott's helping you guys get rid of The Syndicate, then can I help too. . .for love?" Knives asked Blaze pleadingly, as she'd done to Scott. "I'll be _sooo_ good! I promise!"

"Of course," Blaze replied with a tiny smile, which was quickly replaced with a serious look. "Strength in numbers, you know." In response to this, Knives whooped, jumping for joy, stopping just short of the surface of the ceiling. She got a closeup view of the Info boxes as they appeared in midair, slightly lower than the peak of her jump.

 **KNIVES CHAU HAS JOINED THE TEAM**

 **KNIVES CHAU WILL ALSO BE HELPING SCOTT AND RAMONA DEFEAT THE LEAGUE OF EVIL EXES**

Knives flopped back on the couch, making Stacey jump in surprise. Kim glanced at the girl indifferently.

"Whatever," The redhead mumbled.

"And this way, we'll totally get to hang out more, Scott!" A still beaming Knives squealed, turning slightly to face Scott, who nodded slowly, with a spaced-out look written across his features.

"The height on that jump was pretty sick there," Skate praised, totally taken by surprise by the superhuman height of Knives' aforementioned jump, along with the rest of the five vigilantes. Skate eyed her ensemble curiously. "Ninja much?"

Knives' cheeks tinged with pink as she giggled at his compliment. "Well, not really. I just jump really high. And that jump was nothing, really. I've jumped onto rooftops and across sections of this one ridiculously huge library."

"It was really huge. Stupidly huge." Stacey added.

Adam whistled. "Jumping up on rooftops? He scoffed, but there were no traces of disbelief in it. "Some serious agility. And you say you're not some sort of ninja? What's your style, then?" Upon hearing Adam's question, Axel paid close attention, as not to miss her answer.

Knives looked up thoughtfully, partly unsure of how to respond. "Well. . .it doesn't really have a name, I guess. But it's so a kind of style that uses weapons and hand-to-hand fighting, you know, like Kung-Fu or Hapkido. Axel nodded with interest. Being a 'Martial Arts' master and dojo instructor, he found himself fascinated by the description of Knives' unnamed fighting style.

"Well, I wouldn't doubt that you're a solid fighter, then. Especially how you threw that knife. Saw it when it got stuck in the door. It was pretty much lined right up with Scott's head." Axel commented. Knives laughed, though it was full of embarrassment.

"Yeah, it almost went through the door everything, remember?!" Scott entered the conversation excitedly. "Heh. Thank God we got that reinforced one installed!"

"You seem awfully cheerful about the fact that you were almost impaled through the skull by a flying knife." Kim smirked slightly.

"I was talking about how hard Knives had to have thrown that knife for it to go into a reinforced door, Kim!" Scott laughed, as if he'd said the most obvious thing in the world. Knives smiled. Kim rolled her eyes emotionlessly.

"Scott, Scott, Scott. First you date a Catholic 17-year old schoolgirl, then gotta fight the Exes—again, and now you're involved in vigilante business! Wait until Mom and Dad hear this!" Stacey devilishly sneered, flashing Scott a perfect view of her phone. Her words brought a dreadful feeling over Knives, who now had wide eyes.

" _OHMYGOD_! I SO totally forgot! My dad! He's gonna freaking kill me if he finds out I'm involved in this vigilante stuff! That I'm actually fighting The Syndicate! _Oh God_. . ." She ranted apprehensively, biting the nail on her thumb. Scott noticeably flinched and tensed at the mention of Knives' father.

"Lemme guess, he's the type of man who thinks this stuff should be left to the boys in blue." Adam intoned.

"Well. . .I don't think he has an opinion on that, really. I just know that this is something he'll freak out about. I mean, he tried to murder Scott just for being white when he found out we dated! I just know he's gonna flip out if he finds out me being a part of any of this!" Knives explained, full of emotion.

"So I guess that means you aren't going to be able to help us out, then, huh?" Blaze said evenly.

"No way!" She answered, her face lighting up all of a sudden. "I'm still gonna help you guys! I'll just have to keep this a secret from my dad. . .somehow. Maybe tell him I'm over a friends' or working late or something." Blaze permitted a tiny smile to cross her features.

Scott spoke up next, addressing Wood Oak City's heroes. "If you guys see a scary looking dude wearing shades with this cape thingy flowing behind him dressed in all black, don't make eye contact. Just don't. He's creepy. And scary."

"I'll. . .keep that in mind," Blaze said obligingly, highly doubtful that she would find Knives' father to be scary, for obvious reasons, despite being somewhat surprised by Scott's description of the man. "But you're saying he really had it out for you just because you and Knives dated?"

Scott nodded vigorously. "He chopped a BUS in half with a samurai sword just to reach me!"

"It was a streetcar, Scott." Kim mumbled with some annoyance. No one else noticed, but Skate went mute upon hearing the news, where he normally would've fired off an exclamation followed by a wisecrack, but he'd never heard of anything like this, and as a result was now shocked silent. He inwardly prayed that his future girlfriend wouldn't have a father (or mother, for that matter), that had a similar mindset when it came to dating.

" _Tch_ ," Axel lightly scoffed, frowning in surprise. He'd heard of overprotective dads wanting the best for their daughters, but Knives' father had went too far on that one. "That's way too extreme. Especially considering you weren't even together at the time."

"Yeah, I know. My dad's just lame like that." Knives sighed, rolling her eyes.

"So who are the members of this League of Evil Exes?" Blaze asked, changing the subject. "I'm actually really curious."

Ramona exhaled. "Well, if we're going in order, my first Evil Ex is this dude named Matthew Patel. He's got mystical powers that let him fly, shoot fireballs, and summon these Demon Hipster Chicks." Ramona shot Scott a short but sharp look that clearly stated that she would rather not have the actual relationship details shared with Blaze and her friends yet. Scott faltered slightly, signifying that he'd actually gotten this one.

" _Demon Hipster Chicks_. . ." Blaze repeated slowly, letting that settle down in her mind. "Well that's definitely. . . _new_."

"Same." Adam added, absently running his fingers through his dark hair. "We've taken down robots, mutants, and ninjas before, but never really demons."

"I guess a substantial fight is pretty much guaranteed, huh, guys?" Max inquired with a grin, now more than anxious to do battle with actual demons.

"Well, last time I beat him and his Demon Hipster Chicks just by dancing. I mean it started out like a normal fight, right? But then he started this rhyming, and then me, Kim, Knives, Stacey and a bunch of our other friends started doing these sick dance moves that ended up stunning Matthew and his Demon Hipster Chicks, and letting me punch him so hard, he died!" Scott explained excitedly.

"I remember that!" Knives laughed mirthfully. "That was so much fun!"

"That was _weird_." Stacey put in.

"Check it out, we were all like—" Scott said before cutting himself off to repeat the dance moves he and his friends had used during the fight.

"We won't have to be doing that will we?" Axel said, gently wincing, not at the dance moves themselves, but at the thought of having to dance period. This earned him laughs from everyone in the room, barring Zan and Kim, the both of them keeping a straight gaze ahead.

Ramona flashed him a pearly white grin, wanting to have a bit of fun with him. "What, Axel? Embarrassed? You'd be a great dancer!"

Skate moved to give him a playful elbow to the arm, grinning from ear to ear as well. "Yeah, man! I know Blaze has been looking for a partner for her Lambada stuff! Use this opportunity to get some rhythm!"

Axel gave a single, empty chuckle, then began to focus his attention on random items in the room, the sudden discomfort preventing him from saying anything.

"Anyway," Ramona said, returning to the subject, getting the last of her remaining chuckles out. "The second Ex of mine was this guy named Lucas Lee. You guys may know about him. He's like this big, famous movie star."

"Nope. Never heard of him." Adam remarked. "What movies did he do?"

"Honestly, I don't even remember. There was this one movie that he was in, Let's Hope There's a Heaven. It was kinda good, I guess." She shrugged lazily. "He was supposed to be in this one movie called You Just Don't Exist with this other actress, Winifred Hailey."

"He's super tough and cool. . . _and hot_." Scott said, adding the last part silently. Kim rolled her eyes. Ramona just smiled at him.

"Dude, you are _soooo_ gay." Ramona laughed.

" _W-wha? I-I am NOT!_ " Scott stuttered, becoming flustered and red-faced. "But anyway, I went to fight him, but while I was asking him for his autograph, he totally knocked me out with one punch! He's got, like, super strength, man!"

"I doubt it," Adam theorized. "You were busy trying to get his autograph, right? You probably just weren't prepared to take the punch. Knockouts can happen easily that way."

"No, he's actually right, for once," Kim chimed in, hardly believing her own words. "Lee actually tossed him into Casa Loma's tower. Thing's like a billion feet tall." **(Fun Fact: This is an obvious embellishment.)**

"Embellishment or not, if he does have super strength, we all need to be on the up-and-up around this guy. We're tough, but we don't have the superhuman amount of durability that Scott _clearly_ has. He could end up killing us if we aren't careful." Blaze said sternly, the words directed at her five longtime friends.

"Ha! I'd like to see him try!" Max boasted lightly. "I bet he'd go down in three Atomic Drops, four, tops."

"Ever think of saving some for the rest of us, Max?" Adam teased lightly. "I'm pretty sure Scott might want to get his licks in on this guy."

"He didn't even have to touch him last time," Ramona grinningly informed, earning questioning looks from the six. She urged Scott. "Tell 'em."

"All I had to do was trick him into doing a fatal grind down a rail! He went so fast, he literally exploded!" He let out a tiny laugh. "Skateboarders will do anything for their reputation."

"So he's a skateboarder, huh?" Skate uttered with pseudo-seriousness. "Heh. Now I really wanna take this guy on."

Ramona smirked at the teen wryly. "Wonder why that is."

Skate laughed, a grin spreading across his boyish face as he pointed at her with the 'gun sign'. "Yep!"

"Wait. . .what? Why?" Scott said, the joke completely lost on him. His question went unheard, however.

"Number three's gonna be tougher on us all of us, though." Ramona spoke in a slightly lower voice. Blaze didn't fail to notice it, and decided to question her on it.

"Why?"

"He's a vegan."

Blaze slowly raised an eyebrow at this. "And. . .I'm guessing that means something other than the fact that he doesn't eat meat?" The words were laced with genuine curiosity rather than ill-manneredness.

"You mean you don't know what being a vegan means, or whatever?" Kim asked with a frown, suddenly feeling especially bitter, moreso than usual. It was like she was outright directly mocking Blaze for her ignorance of all of the benefits of veganism. The whole room suddenly got tense, as Blaze picked up on this, along with everyone else. Blaze frowned, fixing her gaze on Kim.

"That's exactly what I mean. If you mean to tell me that you know about it, then maybe you can enlighten me." She said, calm and professional-like. Not the slightest trace of anger in her voice.

". . .Actually, let me," Ramona cut in, the tension dispersing as quickly as it had settled with her words. Which worked out just fine, because Kim (who wasn't going to answer due to anger) had set her jaw, and glared daggers at Blaze, who didn't even notice because her focus was on Ramona. "Vegans can get psychic superpowers if they religiously stick to their diet, just like my third Ex, Todd Ingram."

"Prick," Skate scoffed.

"You don't even know him," Adam remarked, half jokingly, a noticeable tinge of amusement in his tone.

"I know what he's like. He's the bassist for this one band, The Clash at Demonhead." Skate explained, surprising Adam.

"He's famous, too?" The elder Hunter sibling asked, before facing Ramona. She nodded.

"Always hated their music, and always knew there was something I didn't like about Ingram. Hell, the whole group seemed off." Skate finished. Ramona chuckled briefly. Knives looked slightly downcast, having been a fan of theirs when they were still around. Still, she knew why he talked about them like he did.

"I just want everyone here to know that I agree with Skate! Todd is a _COCKY. COCK._ And a total douchebag! A totally overpowered douchebag! Oh, and I dated Envy in college." He added casually, directing it mainly at Skate, since he knew them.

"What?! You actually _went out_ with Envy?!" Skate asked, shocked.

"Again, that's another story for another time," Ramona said, not wanting to discuss Envy. She turned to Blaze. "Todd's gonna be unstoppable unless his vegan powers are taken away, that is. Then he's a total joke. I don't think he ever took up martial arts."

"Do they even _teach_ martial arts at the Vegan Academy?" Knives pointed out.

"You've gotta be kidding me," Max said in disbelief, running a gigantic hand across his face. "They have _schools_ just for this?"

"It never made sense to me, either," Stacey chimed in. "If you want to be vegan, just don't eat meat. Simple."

While Blaze agreed with the absurdity of having an entire learning institution exclusively for learning to become a vegan, she steered the conversation back to Todd directly. "So how do we get those powers out of him?"

"We can't. The only thing that can take away his powers are the vegan police. Todd cheated on his diet prior to his fight with Scott, so they zapped him. Cheating on your diet as a vegan is the only way they'll show up, too. Scott was able to finish him off after he was deveganized, but still. . ." She trailed off.

"It was mostly luck, though, that fight." Blaze finished. Ramona nodded.

Blaze hmmed, placing her hands on her hips. An enemy who had telekinetic powers was not only something completely new to her and her team, but it appeared as though they could do nothing to reduce his power. This would be a problem. From where she sat on the couch, Kim smiled rancorously to herself as she looked at Blaze, as if she could read her thoughts. She was gleaning pleasure from seeing Blaze struggle, but Blaze was so deep in contemplation that she didn't even notice Kim's stare. Ramona could practically see the gears turning in the brunette leader's head, and spoke up.

"Don't sweat it, Blaze. Todd's my third Ex, so we won't be dealing with him until the first two are taken care of. We have time."

"What's to say they're not doing things differently this time? You said they'd stop at nothing to keep you two apart, they just may decide to get sneaky on us and switch up." Blaze pointed out, serious.

"They're not changing up." Ramona said assuredly. "It's like some unwritten rule among them. They'd always face Scott in the order that I dated them—starting with Matthew, and ending with Gideon."

After hearing Ramona's explanation, Blaze relaxed a bit, putting the thought of exactly how to beat Todd to bed for the time being. ". . .Alright."

"WAIT!" Scott suddenly said, his right hand shooting skyward, as if he were still in school. He lowered it awkwardly. "I have an important point to make!" A small silence followed. Scott wordlessly shifted his gaze from Blaze and her five friends, to Ramona, to Kim, Knives, and Stacey, before looking back at the six vigilantes. For God knows what reason, he simply stared ahead into space afterwards, still not talking. Everyone stared back at Scott. The chirp of a single cricket could be faintly heard outside the window.

"Well?" Axel said, the suddenness of his voice effectively shattering the silence. "Let's hear it."

"Um. . .okay. . .wait, what did you want to hear? Me play bass?" Scott asked innocently. Axel let out a heavy sigh of exasperation.

"You said you had a point to bring up and never said it, baby brother." Stacey said somewhat irritably, hoping to jog his memory so he would be able to (hopefully) help Ramona and himself.

" _Baby?!_ " Scott exclaimed, offended.

"Never mind that!" Ramona cut him off, seizing him tightly by the shoulder. "What did you have to say? If it's about what we're talking about, we need to hear it. If it's about something random and stupid. . .just. . .save it for later, if anything."

"Oh! I remember now! You just said that Todd lost his vegan powers right before I killed him, remember?" How would being resurrected give him all of his powers back? Wouldn't he have to eat nothing but vegetables again, or go back to vegan academy or something?"

"That's an excellent point, Scott." Zan agreed. "If he's just been resurrected, and attending a certain school is required to obtain these alleged 'vegan powers', then our encounter with this boy will be far less daunting than we had anticipated." Ramona wanted to agree with Scott and Zan, but just couldn't.

" _No_ ," She said, shaking her head. Resentment for Gideon began to creep into her voice. "No, you don't know him like I do. I can almost guarantee that it won't be that easy. . ."

"Huh?" A bewildered Scott mumbled, scratching his head. "I'm confused. . ."

"Scott, Gideon is capable of alot of things. You know this, you've seen it. I. . .I just know that somehow, he was able to get Todd's powers back to him."

"You really think so?" Scott asked quietly, not breaking eye contact.

"I'm not about to put it past him," Ramona said in even tones, staring at him intensely.

"We'll figure something out just in case, then," Blaze cut in with an air of kind finality, somewhat understanding how Ramona felt. "Better safe than sorry. Especially when it comes to crazy shit like this. In the meantime, how about you just continue telling us about the Exes? Who did you date next?"

Ramona nodded shortly. "My fourth Ex was who we call Roxy Richter." Scott quietly shuddered pleasantly. Ramona rolled her eyes and continued speaking. "She's a half-ninja."

"That's it? Just a half ninja? Skate asked. " _Tch_. _She'll_ be taken down with no problems, then!"

"We've handled clans of ninjas—full ninjas, in the past. If this girl hasn't even gotten through her ninja training yet, then I'm with my bro on this one." Adam agreed.

"She's way more dangerous than she sounds," Ramona remarked with severity. "She's a total hothead, and trust me, you don't want to get her fired up during a fight."

"She thinks she's the only one that can rage?" Axel scoffed. "Just wait till she meets me."

"That's not even all, guys," Scott said, eyes going wide. "She can go inside people's dreams! She tried to kill me in my sleep!" Ramona nodded to confirm this. The six vigilantes treated them both to looks of disbelief.

"The _hell_? Who does she think she is? _Freddy_?" The teen remarked.

"Damn." Blaze uttered. If she hadn't been expecting Ramona's exes to do something, or anyone else for that matter, THAT was it.

"They won't kill me. Maybe they'll fight me, but I know they'll keep me alive. I mean, it's why they exist, but, Scott. . ." Ramona trailed off.

Blaze nodded. "He's a different story. And they say that if you die in a dream. . ."

"You die for real, yeah." Ramona finished.

"That's, like, exactly what she said when she chased me through that forest!" Scott replied, a little freaked out by this detail. Blaze couldn't picture a forest in Toronto, so she just assumed that said forest was merely the setting that his subconscious had created for the dream. Scott thought back to his encounters with the blonde half-ninja. "She really hated me, too. Like, hated my guts. More than even Gideon or the twins, I think."

"Twins?" Axel repeated.

"Yeah, I dated twins." Ramona nodded. "Kyle and Ken Katayanagi."

"Yeah. . .wait, wasn't his name, like, Kevin, or something?" Scott said, looking to Ramona, who shook her head.

"You dated the Katayanagi twins?" Zan remarked, sounding genuinely surprised.

"You know them, Zan?" Blaze asked, turning to face Zan.

"I have heard of their exploits. They are award-winning roboticists." Zan nodded before taking on a thoughtful expression. "Though they were always said to be honorable. I never would have expected them to become evil." Ramona simply stared ahead, somewhat stony-faced, knowing herself to be the cause of this, yet instantly damning all ideas of taking it easy on them because of it to Hell. They were after her Scott, and she'd fight to the death for him. And in a way, it wasn't her fault. Yeah, she'd broken alot of hearts in the past, but it was because she'd conquered her fear of 'getting stuck' in relationships. And, as it would always turn out, she just. . .hadn't. But Scott was going to help her with that, and she felt confident that together, they'd be able to do it together.

"Do you know what their abilities in terms of combat are, Zan?" Blaze asked.

"That, I do not." Came his reply.

"They don't really have any powers or anything when they're fighting separately, but they have this weird thing that when they join hands," Scott began to supply, taking Ramona's hand in his for emphasis. "and decide to fight side by side, they get, like, superhuman strength and new moves!"

"It's called a _Twin-Link_ , Scott," Ramona reminded him.

"It's safe to say that in a fight of nine to two, the odds are in our favor," Blaze said with a slight smile. "So as long as we can keep them apart during the fight, we should be fine."

"Sounds like a good plan to me," Ramona responded.

"Wait, why are they even fought at the same time? I know they're twins and all that, but I thought you said they came in the order you dated them." Adam inquired.

"I kinda. . .dated them both at the same time. I cheated on one with the other." Ramona confessed, expecting some sort of question such as 'You'd cheat on your boyfriend with his own brother?', but was pleasantly surprised when none came. From Adam, who just nodded understandingly, or from any of the other members of the team. Perhaps they sensed her discomfort and guilt at the matter and chose not to bring it up. Either way, though, she was happy.

"That leaves only one more left to discuss, then." Blaze started with a nod towards the couple. "Exactly who is this Gideon?"

Ramona's head faintly glowed as her features took on a somewhat dark look. She really didn't feel like talking about Gideon in-depth, but doing so would aide them in their task, so she decided to do so anyway. "Well, like I said, he heads up the Evil Exes, and he's the guy I dated last before Scott. As for what he can do, he has this thing he invented called The Glow, which traps a person inside their own head."

"Mind Subspace?" Axel asked, wanting clarification.

"Yeah," Ramona confirmed. "Inside their own head, with all of their inner demons."

"What if you don't really have any of those, though?" Skate pointed out.

"I believe that everybody does, Skate." The courier responded somewhat eerily, her eyes boring into his. Skate kept quiet and dropped the subject, even though he did still think otherwise.

"How is it even used? This Glow thing?" Max inquired with a slight frown.

"He shoots it out of his hands in this, sort of, wide beam. . .thingy, and anyone that it hits gets infected with it." Scott answered.

"So you're saying that if a person gets infected, they'll be trapped in Subspace with no way out?" Blaze somewhat warily asked.

"Not exactly," Ramona said, smiling slightly. "You'll be trapped in your head, but you'll also still be present on this dimensional plane. It's sorta like you'll be in two places at once. And you'll know when you have it, because your head will glow. It lies dormant inside you until you experience strong negative emotions, at which point you become aggressive and confrontational. And it's untreatable. If you get infected, there's no cure."

"Wow. . ." Blaze said matter-of-factly before pointing something out. "I guess that explains your head glowing when I mentioned, Gideon just now, huh?"

Ramona nodded. "Yeah. My head tends to glow whenever I think to hard about that guy. Scott got infected too."

"He also messed with my memories!" Scott informed hotly.

"He's also capable of altering memories?" Zan repeated. "How is he able to do this? I imagine Subspace has little to do with one's actual memories."

"Uhh. . .we don't really know. But one time he made me think that Kim got captured by this one kid, Simon Lee when I was in high school, and that I had to beat all of his henchmen to fight Simon and rescue Kim!" Scott retold.

"Wait. You told me that you remembered fighting a gigantic purple-suited monster kidnapping her. You said he controlled people's minds and shot lightning bolts from his eyes or something, and that you kicked him so hard that he saw the curvature of the Earth." Ramona interjected confusedly.

"He said what? Kim asked, shaking her head in confusion. "That doesn't even—whatever. The point is, that Scott really just punched Simon when he saw us together."

"He made you remember all that?" Axel asked, his eyes widening very slightly upon hearing of Gideon's far-fetched memory alterations.

"Yeah," Scott muttered angrily, clenching his fists while raising them. He unclenched them.

"How'd you get your real memories back, then?" Blaze questioned.

"I merged with the NegaScott after we fought." Scott replied.

"That your evil twin or something?" Max surmised, not knowing what to think after hearing Scott say that he _merged_ with NegaScott. The rest of the vigilantes felt similarly.

"Not really, I guess. It was actually more of a manifestation of all my forgotten past mistakes. I went on a wilderness sabbatical when Ramona left me to get out of the pit of sadness I'd fallen in, when Kim and me saw it. I tried to fight it, thinking that killing it was the only way to get over her, but then Kim told me I couldn't run from my mistakes forever or I'd keep making them. So then we stopped fighting, and he just. . .became a part of me, I guess."

"Wow. . ." Knives whispered, gazing down, then back up at Scott.

"Sounds like it was a really heavy moment for you," Blaze commented. She was a bit surprised to hear someone like Scott succumbing to depression, but could see it under these circumstances, as it was painfully obvious that he loved Ramona. Hell, he'd gone as far as to take on a league of supernatural evil exes for her.

That was. . .intense to watch, actually. Kim thought, lowering her own eyes. Although she'd never admit it to him, she was proud of him for making things right with Ramona and accepting his mistakes. Maybe—just maybe, Scott Pilgrim had hope after all.

"Yeah, it kind of was," Scott said nodding slowly. "But what were we talking about before this, actually?" He asked innocently, scratching his head.

Kim sighed inwardly. Maybe not. "Gideon, Scott." She said through gnashed teeth with her eyes closed.

"Oh right," He said nonchalantly with a smile, before his mood suddenly turned furious. His head beginning to glow once again. "That bastard! He's totally mental! Do you know what he was going to do to Ramona? He was going to put her in a cyro. . .cy. . ."

" _Cryogenic_ , babe," Ramona assisted.

"Thanks," Scott briefly uttered before returning to his story. "Cryogenic freezer thingy that he was gonna keep her in until she admitted to loving him! Like he did to all his other ex-girlfriends!"

The heroes of Wood Oak City did absolutely nothing to stop their distaste from showing.

"Man, this dude is in serious need of a check up," Skate remarked.

"For his screwed up head, you mean?" Adam scoffed, frowning. "No kidding."

"Forget that," Axel growled. "His ass should've been thrown in an asylum long ago."

"Just deplorable." Blaze spat, shaking her head with a gritty frown.

"He even said that he owned me." Ramona added disgustedly, scrunching her face up at the very thought of what he said to her at the Chaos Theatre that day. "To him, I was just a possession." She took a short pause and added icily: "But the only damn things he'll possess are broken bones before me and Scott kill him."

"Yeah!" Scott agreed, once again clenching a fist.

"And we'll be with you," Blaze said giving a sharp nod.

"Yeah. . ." Ramona said thankfully, turning her gaze toward Blaze and her friends.

"Yeah, thanks, guys! This is gonna rock! Having all of us against the Exes. . ." Scott trailed off excitedly, fingers twitching with excitement.

"That's enough about The League for now," Ramona said gently before turning to the vigilantes with an inquisitive smile. "I'm curious. What about you, guys?"

"Huh?" Blaze said, now confused due to the wording of Ramona's question.

"Every syndicate has its top players," Ramona clarified in a knowing tone. "who are Mr. X's?"

Blaze slightly declined her head in understanding. "There's two normal ranking top ones, and two higher top ranking ones. One of the lower high ranking ones is a woman named Electra, or just Elle for short. She's a dominatrix with an electric whip that she can extend to her will."

Scott shifted uncomfortably upon hearing that she was a dominatrix. "Uh, those kinds of women are kinda creepy. . .is she gonna be wearing any of that weird S&M stuff?"

Stacey, greatly disturbed by hearing her own brother reference bondage, suddenly grew wide eyed and stiff. "Scott, PLEASE don't say 'S&M' in my immediate presence, ever again."

"Oh, suck it up, dude," Ramona chided with a smile after getting a good laugh at what Stacey had said. "You can take her."

"In addition to what Blaze said, her 'whip' is, in its base form, a bionic arm, that has the power to generate astronomically powerful electrical explosions, capable of covering an entire area." Zan added. Knives flinched upon hearing that one of Electra's arms were bionic.

"Whoa," Ramona said, surprised at hearing about Electra's abilities. "Some hell of a dominatrix."

"Yeah, and chances are, she'll try and put moves on you, Scott." Blaze informed, turning to face the figure of Ramona's affections. "I'm pretty sure she does it to every guy she sees—weather they're actually on her side or not. She's just loose like that." The other vigilantes silently agreed.

Ramona scoffed angrily. "That slut even looks at my boyfriend the wrong way, and her neck'll meet the edge of this sword." Ramona scoffed angrily, grasping The Power of Loyalty, yet not lifting it all the way. Max chuckled.

"I just hope my highlight doesn't get punched out again," Knives said somewhat meekly, running her fingers through the bright red streak in her dark hair.

"Huh?" Skate said confusedly.

"She's just stuck on the fact that this chick has a bionic arm. The drummer for The Clash at Demonhead punched her so hard with her bionic arm that the dye came out of her hair." Kim supplied, in monotone.

"Knew there was something sketchy about that band. . ." Skate couldn't help but mutter silently to himself, the comment having gone unheard.

"Really? God. . ." That was Max, as he absently ran a hand through his own hair. "Didn't know that was. . .even possible, actually. That drummer must have a hell of a punch on her. But anyway, the next top Syndicate executive, standard ranking, is actually a kangaroo named Roo."

Scott, Ramona, Knives, and Stacey expressed mild surprise at this, yet it was the very latter mentioned of them that seemed to have her mind completely blown. As her mouth dropped slightly agape, an Info box popped up next to Stacey.

 **Stacey Pilgrim**

 **Status: Wants to think she's seen and heard it all at this point, but probably hasn't.**

"Ugh! Lemme guess, the freakin' kangaroo can box, too, can't it?" She demanded sardonically, throwing her hands up.

"Bingo!" Skate grinned, pointing at Stacey.

"Of course it can!" Stacey retorted believingly, rolling her eyes deep in the back of her head. She crossed her arms, simply frustrated at the mere fact that she couldn't make any logic of how an animal could possibly be part of a deadly crime syndicate. "How does any of this crap even work?!"

"Well, it's not so much as Roo joining as much as his abusive master, Bruce, joining. That bastard is an evil clown with a whip that gets hired by different organizations for assassinations. Of course, he wouldn't be able to get things done as easy without Roo, so unfortunately he's dragged into it. And if the little guy refuses, Bruce really lays into him with that whip. . .damn shame." Max said broodingly, shaking his head at the end.

"That's so horrible!" Knives gasped. She then bitterly added: "God, PETA should, like, push him into traffic or something."

"Let's hope they haven't been corrupted along with everything else," Kim said, her eyes drifting lazily to the right.

"He'd better hope they get to him before I do," Max replied darkly to Knives' comment, ignoring Kim's. The wrestler gave a nightmare-inducing scowl, accentuated by the scar running vertically across his left eye. "Bruce has been doing this barbaric shit for too long."

As a man that was quite fond of nature (and thus God's creatures), it was only natural that Max would take an instant disliking who those who abused them in such a way. And if they were a part of The Syndicate, oh, he would personally see to it that they got theirs. It wasn't like it was hard for him of all people to accomplish, after all. He was extremely skilled in the art art of Professional Wrestling, and none of his muscles were for show.

"When we run into them, don't hurt Roo more than necessary. He always runs off when we take out his master." Blaze said, the statement directed at Scott, Ramona, and Knives. The brunette's tone had been tinged with sorrow, as she knew for a fact that they would need to attack Roo, even if said attacks were purely meant to be defensive. She'd seen them fight, and the kangaroo was deathly afraid of that whip that Bruce always threatened him with, so as reacting due to fear, Roo attacked them, and he was definitely no slouch in terms of combat. Blaze didn't like that it came to attacking him at all, but she and her team needed to keep themselves safe.

"Y-yeah, o-okay," Scott stuttered, clearly finding Max to be frightening at that moment. " _Kangaroo. . .Max. . .scary. . ._ "

"Dude, chill out. He's not mad at you." Ramona said with a grin.

"I-I-I ain't scared!" Scott retorted nervously."

"You just said you were scared, retard," Kim smirked. "We can hear. And you look like you're about to piss yourself."

"Heh, sorry about that, man," Max apologized earnestly, his usual amiability having returned. "Didn't mean to scare ya. I was just fired up about this whole Roo thing, you know?"

"You seem to really like animals," Stacey easily deduced.

"Hey, what can I say, I'm a nature guy," Came Max's response, accompanied with a slight chuckle.

"Yeah, it is kind of sad, though," Scott said, returning to the topic of Roo. "And it kinda sucks that he won't even be able to really defend himself if I have to hit him. I mean, what can a kangaroo really. . .do besides. . .hop, I guess?"

"Kangaroos are killing machines." Zan said smartly, yet gravely, crossing his arms. "Their legs are powerful enough to let them hop at 35 miles per hour and jump up to six feet into the air. They are prone to kicking if they feel the need to."

Adam spoke next. "Not to mention their tails are so strong that they can balance on them. And that's gonna make it hard on us since Roo uses his like a weapon. He's a boxer too, remember?"

"Oh. Yeah," Scott mumbled.

"Either way, these are some pretty scary stories. I mean, first there's a dominatrix that has a bionic arm and electric superpowers, and now there's this boxing kangaroo with his bastard evil clown master. Like, what are you guys gonna say next?" Stacey chimed in.

"Well, for the first high ranker," Adam started. "There's a dude named Ash. He's. . .flamboyant, eccentric, gay, and has a complex personality."

"I'm totally used to gayness, man," Scott said with a small laugh. "My former roommate was pretty darn gay."

"Yeah. Douchebag stole my last boyfriend and turned him gay, too." Stacey added, though a smile flickered across her lips, the event now funny to her. It was apparently funny to Blaze, Adam, and Skate, as they all laughed a little. Axel and Max let amused smiles cross their features— Axel's slight, Max's broad.

"What did you mean when you said he had a 'complex personality'?" Knives asked.

"Well, he has these tendencies to go from calm to totally mad at the drop of a coin." Adam explained.

"Sounds more like he's bipolar to me," Kim commented dryly. Adam laughed.

"Kind of, but being bipolar would technically mean he'd would experience way more intense mood swings than just temporary anger. Ash is just weird like that, I s'pose." Adam shrugged with a chuckle.

"Then I guess fighting against him never gets boring, huh?" Kim smirked, with ease that surprised her, resting her chin in her hand. She found that she was sort of enjoying talking to Adam.

"Oh you don't know the half of it. He's got superhuman speed, and he's really strong." Adam replied.

"And instead of using regular punches and kicks, he uses these. . ." Max laughingly trailed off, searching for words. "Ballet moves and these slaps to fight. And somehow he makes 'em work, but c'mon, you can't get much weirder than that."

"And once we beat him into submission, he starts _crying_!" Skate laughed.

"Wow," Ramona grinned. "And I joke about Scott being gay. . .sometimes. But still, this dude takes it to a whole new level."

"Just wait till you see him," Blaze chuckled.

"Yeah, that reminds me," Scott said. "At what points are we going to be seeing these guys? Not all at once, right?"

"Oh, no," Blaze said, and then went on to explain. "Electra patrols the streets, so it's likely we'll see her early on. God knows when we'll end up running into Ash or Roo. But as for the last Syndicate enforcer, we won't be seeing him until much, much later."

"Why? Who is he?" Scott asked, leaning forwards.

The room got serious as there was a microscopic pause. During which Blaze and Axel shared a quick and knowing look—it was as if Blaze was telling Axel: 'It'd be best if you told this one.'

"Shiva." Axel simply said, his voice having lowered some with anger. "X's right-hand man. His bodyguard."

Kim narrowed her eyes just slightly. So that was Mr. X's right-hand man, more importantly, the one who'd kidnapped Adam. It was on that sole basis alone that the redhead decided that she particularly disliked this Shiva person. What kind of name was Shiva, anyway? It was a stupid name if you asked her. She'd also noticed that a rather sour look had appeared on Skate's face, too.

"He sounds like a douche," Kim blurted out, before before looking away. The words had just flown out before she could stop them, and Kim usually had much more control of her impulses than that. Luckily, nobody seemed to be too concerned.

"He is," Axel said. "The heartless bastard. Back in the Rakushin incident, he was the one that tried to pose as the General to give our military the green light to start the war."

Adam flashed Kim a brief smile, as if he'd read her earlier thoughts. Kim blinked in surprise and blushed, yet said nothing. But still, she felt. . .good just then. For Adam. Shiva had kidnapped him—the prick—and Adam had given him what he deserved by exposing him and kicking his ass.

"Well, what can he do?" Ramona asked.

"He's fast, and he's got superhuman strength to the point where he can lift a person with one arm, and use one arm to push himself into the air and across a room." Axel explained.

"Whoa!" That was Scott.

"He can also use fire like I can, and he's got superhuman agility." Out of his peripheral vision, he could almost make out Knives raising an eyebrow.

"That so?" The petite Asian asked. Axel turned his head slightly to face her.

"Yeah, but nowhere near as agile as you, though." He said, keeping his face hard. Knives smiled brightly in response, leaning back into the couch.

"And what's really worth mentioning are his fighting skills. Shiva's a monster with his hands—and that's almost putting it lightly."

"What's his style?" Ramona asked.

"Koppojutsu."

Ramona sucked air in between her teeth almost apprehensively, but not quite. She knew of some martial arts styles, like Kickboxing and stuff, and she felt confident that she could deal with that easily if she ever needed to. But actually knowing Ninjutsu herself, she also knew that Koppojutsu was savage, and if Shiva was as heartless as Axel said, then this man would definitely be nothing to take lightly. She even suddenly had instant respect for Adam as a fighter. If he'd taken on a no-mercy Koppojutsu practitioner one-on-one and lived to tell about it, then it was only a testament to how good of a fighter he really was.

"Yeah." Axel nodded.

"So he's a ninja then?" She asked.

"Not really. Yeah, it's a form of Ninjutsu, but Shiva's not so much the ninja type. Apparently though, he does do some assassin work. You can imagine how that goes." Axel scoffed.

"Yeah," Ramona nodded, knowing that someone like Shiva would make the perfect assassin.

"And that's not even it. He has this power he can tap into that gives him super speed. His 'Super Shiva Mode'." Axel finished.

"Wait," Stacey started, fear for their safety (especially for Scott) creeping into her voice. "If he's an assassin, isn't there a chance he'll try to kill you guys in your sleep or something?"

He shook his head. "X's gonna want us alive. That way he can try his twisted mind games on us, so he'll keep Shiva at his side regarding that. Know he's happy about _that_." Axel said bitterly and utterly knowingly, referring to Shiva.

"Why?" Knives asked.

"I'm his rival," Axel replied. "He'd get to take a crack at me, and he's had it out for me ever since we first met." He let out a somewhat bitter chuckle. "We're polar opposites, too. Case in point: He can keep his cool no matter what, and I've always been a bit of a hothead." He paused briefly. "And I'm more ready than ever to put him down."

"We'll be ready too." Ramona said seriously.

"Good," Blaze nodded, finally speaking after Axel had finished informing them on Shiva. "Well, that pretty much does it for all the Syndicate enforcers. We were going to head out to investigate a few places tonight, but if you guys are wiped from tonight's events, we can start tomorrow." She said considerately, turning to Scott, Knives and Ramona, knowing they obviously weren't used to such a style of working.

"Who said I was tired?" Scott grinned, leaping energetically over the arm of the loveseat.

"And like I said, if Scott's ready, so am I," Ramona said, standing up in a much more normal fashion, picking up The Power of Loyalty as she did so.

"I guess that means you're coming too, Knives?" Max inquired with a smirk.

"Totally!" Knives said, effortlessly jumping up off of the couch in a frontflip, right over Ramona, landing gracefully before the vigilantes.

"Those Syndicate assholes tried to ruin Shatter Band, so, I _shall_ punish them!" Scott declared dramatically, holding a fist in midair.

"What are you talking about, Scott?" Kim demanded.

Scott began to sweat, fearful of facing Kim's wrath should she not believe his story. "Well, um. . .while I was. . .hiding you. . .and getting you safe, uh, The Syndicate guys. . .uh, kind of trashed your drums. . .yeah."

Kim's eyes bored into his soul. ". . .How bad? How bad did they trash my drums?" She demanded hotly.

"L-like _bad_." Scott answered.

" _Damn it_! _Damn them_!" Kim growled, smashing her fist down on the arm of the couch, causing Stacey to jump slightly in surprise. After her anger subsided, she simply hung her head, her eyes reflecting no emotion.

"I'm gonna get them replaced for you, Kim I promise!" Scott said resolutely, in an attempt to both reassure her and cheer her up.

"Shut up, Scott," Kim snapped in a low voice, still not looking up at him. "You don't have any money. Just forget it. Forget Shatter Band. Just forget it all." To someone who hadn't known Kim as long as Scott did, it would've appeared as though she hadn't truly cared that her drums were destroyed, but in actuality, she was alot more upset than her tone let on. Kim loved playing the drums. And to hear that they'd been crushed, Kim herself had felt likewise.

"Kim, I can get more money by fighting bad guys! Like the the Exes! And thugs! They explode into money, remember?!" Scott reminded.

"You know, you can 'just forget' pretty much anything. The one thing I want you to forget, you can't?" She inquired sourly. "Whatever."

 **Kim Pine Translation: Fine, Scott, You win. You'd better stick to your promise so we can replace my drums.**

"Whatever," She grumbled irritably upon eyeing the Info box.

"So. . .I guess we'll just let ourselves out then." Stacey said a little awkwardly, getting up from her seat. Kim doing the same with a sigh. "Since you guys are going, and all. Subspace Door in the back, right?"

"Yeah. . .Stacey, wait—" Ramona started, remembering the situation with the doors, Stacey turned to face her. Kim continued on her way. "The Subspace doors have been. . .locked, or something. Like, I can open them but for some reason nobody else can. How'd you two even manage to get in here?"

"Uh, yeah, we know. We couldn't open them either, so we used our Sub-Trac cards to get through." **(Fun Fact: Stacey and Kim purchased these approximately 3.5 days after the events of Volume 6.)**

" _Sub-Trac card_ ," Ramona mused. "So I guess these guys have to use those to get into Subspace. At least until we figure out what's going on with the doors."

"What's that? Some kind of key?" Blaze surmised.

"Well, not really. It just lets you pass through a Subspace Door without having to actually open it. Handy, but not essential. Well, I guess now it is."

"We'll have to worry about getting some for ourselves later," Blaze said, her following words to be laced with determination. "Right now we've got a city to clean up."

" _Whaaaat_?," Scott complained. "We're just cleaning up? I thought we were doing cool stuff like fighting criminals!"

Skate burst out laughing at Scott's cluelessness. "Dude, we _are_!"

"Do you know _anything_ , Scott?" Stacey groaned, dragging a hand across her face with mild annoyance. She put up a hand in a weary gesture. "Just. . .be careful out on these streets, alright?"

"No promises!" Responded a smiling Scott.

* * *

 ** _A/N: Hey guys! Thats one more chapter down!_**

 ** _Now, a few things I wanted to discuss._**

 ** _First off, I know I said that the characters wouldn't gain any extra abilities or such in the last chapter, but with Ramona putting her foot down and telling Scott that she'll fight by Scott's side no matter the circumstances, it just felt extremely necessary for her to receive a power sword for it, and it's what I feel like it would have happened if she'd said that in the books. I may do other stuff like this in future chapters, but rest assured, if I do end up giving another character (from either side) a slight change, or added power or weapon, it won't be too crazy and it will make sense._**

 ** _Secondly, those who have played the Scott Pilgrim videogame will recognize that the game's version of a Subspace Highway was featured in this chapter right off the bat. There will be small references to the videogame dotted throughout this fanfic, and the trippy Substance Highway is one of them. (Not all Subspace Highways in the story will be like this.)_**

 _ **And for fans who have beaten SoRRv5 and unlocked all the characters may have one question: 'If this is taking place after Remake, then where's Rudra?' Don't fret. I wouldn't dare leave her out of this story. :) She may not have been mentioned in this chapter as a 'Syndicate Executive', but she WILL be appearing in this story later down the road and given substantial screen time (or is it page time?) as well. The reason she is not mentioned by the heroes in this chapter is because this story is set after the events of the Mania ending (true ending) of Remake. And the heroes don't encounter Rudra on the route that must be taken take to get the Mania ending—only on a route that leads straight to one of the bad endings. (Those who have played SoRRv5 know exactly what I mean by these 'routes'.) So naturally, they would be unaware of her existence. Rudra's arc in this story will take place after her own ending in v5 (where she rescues her little sister from the Syndicate Stronghold), which presumably takes place shortly after the heroes defeat Mr. X. And yes, I do plan on having Rudra fight against Roxie, (this will only be a side fight, though. Roxie's main fight will be against the main nine characters) as well as having her eventually meet Blaze face-to-face (not necessarily at the same time as the fight with Roxie). How they'll react to each other? That'd be telling XD.**_

 _ **Lastly, for those who are confused by Axel's mentioning of the 'Super Shiva' mode, it was a new attribute given to Shiva in SoRRv5.1 (the update patch for Remake). As referenced in the chapter, it allows Shiva to move at SUBSTANTIALLY higher speeds. I have decided to include this as one of his abilities for him to use in this story.**_

 ** _So yeah! I had a ton of fun writing this chapter, particularly, having Knives take on the role of a main character. She's my favorite Scott Pilgrim character, and I figured that her abilities would really be helpful in fighting The Syndicate and the Exes. And even though it was just for a sentence, I liked that I was able to have Knives talk about her fighting style. She obviously knows how to fight, but O'Malley never really gave it a name, and nor will I for the sake of this being a crossover. And for those of you SP fans that were wondering how Ramona knew so much about Koppojutsu, let me explain. She seems to be knowledgeable in several styles, be it just hearing about them or knowing them herself. She learned Ninjutsu from Roxy, and briefly mentions Kickboxing in Volume 5. And especially since Koppo is a form of Ninjutsu, I figured that Ramona would've at least known about it. Furthermore, since The Syndicate is involved, expect familiar SoR enemies (and bosses) to appear in this story._**

 ** _Until next time!_**

 ** _—Stefan422_**


	5. Chapter 5

**Streets of Toronto**

 **Chapter Five**

 **ON THE STREETS OF RAGE**

"Gotta admit, I didn't think I'd be helping six vigilantes save our city from a criminal syndicate when I got out of bed." Ramona said as the group of nine walked down the somewhat dimly lit Toronto street. The hail had stopped, allowing a clear, unobstructed view of the bright, white, two-holed moon that hung in the night sky. An indication that The Syndicate would surely be prowling about. With Toronto in X's grasp, it was entirely possible, and even likely, for a crime to occur in broad daylight, or in crazy weather, but generally, any criminal's favorite time to strike was on a clear, quiet night such as this. Everyone knew that.

"Well _I_ wasn't expecting to help two hipsters and their energetic friend take down a group of evil exes when I woke up this morning, either." Blaze replied good-naturedly.

"Funny how fate works, isn't it?" The courier responded with a smile.

"Yeah, funny," Blaze lightly chuckled.

"Can you guys believe how warm it is out? This is, like, springtime weather, and it's, like, practically winter! I don't even need this jacket. . ." Scott trailed off merrily before his face fell in realization. "Aww. . .man, I totally could've left this at home, too. . ."

"Give it here," Ramona insisted, putting her hand out. "I'll throw it in my bag." Scott obliged, shrugging off his coat and handing it to her. Ramona figured that without the restrictions of the parka, he could at least move his arms easier, but then again, knowing Scott Pilgrim, he'd probably find a way around it.

"Oh, and sorry about what Kim said to you back there, Blaze. You know, when we were discussing Todd?" Scott apologized. Blaze waved him reassuringly.

"It's fine. I had no idea that being a vegan apparently gave you psychic powers, so I asked. I'm not ashamed of not knowing things." Blaze said simply with a shrug.

"Still, that was kind of. . . _mean_ of Kim." Scott said thoughtfully, having known Kim the longest. He looked at the tiny cracks in the empty street as he walked—his voice dropping to a whisper. "I wonder what's gotten _into_ her. . ."

"So we saw some alleyways around this corner that looked pretty suspicious on our way to your concert," Blaze began, her figure briefly illuminated by the streetlamp that she walked under. They began to round a corner. "We're gonna poke around and see what's up."

" _You ain't pokin' around shit._ " Growled a voice familiar to Wood Oak City's heroes. They'd all turned the corner, and they'd all entered fighting stances.

" _Donovan_ ," Blaze spat, charging her fists with chi in preparation to end his life for what felt like the hundredth time. She saw there was another familiar face standing with him. " _Galsia_."

" _Fielding,_ " Galsia greeted back snidely. "You think you can stop The Syndicate _now_?"

"I know I can," She started, the determination high in her voice. Even as she noticed the four thugs standing behind the two aforementioned thugs. Two armed with bats wrapped in barbed wire, the other two armed with AK-47's. Donovan and Galsia themselves were armed with a lead pipe and army knife respectively. "Starting with you." She finished, rushing forward and elbow crossing Galsia forcing him to drop the knife. This prompted Donovan to raise the pipe over his head, but before he could do anything else, he was cleaved in two by The Power of Loyalty, it's owner having leapt in from what seemed to the punks as nowhere.

The gun-toting thugs did not fire immediately, instead moving slightly to get a better position. One quickly decided to target Max, and fired. Max pulled off a Power Slide, sliding under stream the bullets and knocking his would-be attacker off his feet. He was finished off with a hard shoulder drop. An 'And stay down!' from the hulking wrestler accompanied this.

"Dudes, what's with your weapons, anyway?" Scott questioned rather loudly, ducking under a bat swing, and sweeping out with his leg to catch another bat-wielding hoodlum. "Who wraps a baseball bat with. . .spiky wire stuff?"

"It's called _barbed wire_ dumbsh _ARRGGH_!" The other thug roared as he was nailed with a Shoryuken and sent flying. His corpse thudded upon falling back to the ground.

"You're dead, _bitch_!" The remaining criminal spat, shooting at Blaze as she rushed him from a moderate distance. Blaze gracefully sidestepped each speeding bullet that flew her way without so much as batting a lash. When she got right in front of him, she kicked out with her foot before using the the sheer force of her lower-body strength to kick off of his chest in an athletic flip-kick. The thug was killed, his weapon falling to the ground beside him.

"Let's go check out the. . ." Blaze started, before catching something in her peripheral vision. Upon gazing up, she fixed her lips to warn her teammates of the danger, but Knives still beat her to it by milliseconds.

" _Dude has a gun_!" The petite Asian had shouted, pointing up at a figure perched atop a building aiming a DP-12 Shotgun at them. Those who weren't already looking up hadn't bothered to, instead, they wisely opted to dive out of the way of the first shot, which cracked thunderously through the air. The shooter then tried to specifically target Knives, who was bounding from wall to wall in attempt dodge, as well as using her knives to deflect the shots.

"You guys go! I'll deal with this and catch up!" Knives called, skillfully deflecting a bullet.

"Alright, Knives!" Blaze called, jerking her head towards the alleyway the that the thugs had presumably came from, indicating that the rest of them follow her. "We'll be in the first alleyway!"

"Okay!" Knives called back, hurling a knife at her unrelenting assailant, yet only managing to knock the gun from his grasp. He swore, temporarily halting his assault to retreat back to the roof. Knives followed him, pushing off into the air from the current wall she happened to be on. Luckily, it was opposite the wall of the roof that the thug was on, so she was able to launch herself diagonally upwards and be there without wasting any time. Upon landing nimbly on the rooftop, she saw that the thug was now pointing an M16 at her, and that he'd been accompanied with another unarmed thug, and a blue garbed ninja (to Knives' mild surprise). Still she stood ready.

"You're going down, Syndicate losers!" Knives spat, lunging at the nearest goon, which happened to be the one that had shot at her before. He fired, only to have his shot deflected by a knife. Knives tossed the blade at him, successfully piercing his heart through. The unarmed thug ran at her at the same time the ninja leaped at her. Knives hopped back slightly and killed the unarmed goon with ease by ramming the butt of the knife into his forehead with crushing force, before ducking under the ninja's punch.

"Foolish child! Your skills pale in comparison to the might of the Kusanagi Clan!" The ninja roared, chopping down with his hand.

"I'm 18, dude!" She retorted while blocking his strike, slightly unnerved by the fact that his metal headband was pulled over his eyes. She deflected a swift kick aimed at her stomach and made a single slash at his throat. Blood sprayed, and he was dead within an instant. With all the thugs dead and no more in sight, Knives leaped off the building and ran to find Blaze and the others.

"Guys!" Knives called out, seeing them all in the wide alleyway. She ran to them.

"Hey," Adam smirked lightly. What took you?"

"There was this other guy up there with him, and some blue ninja who wore his headband over his eyes. Which is kinda creepy. And weird. I mean, there was no way he was seeing anything, but he still seemed to know where I was and what I was doing." Knives answered.

"Kusanagi Clan," Blaze muttered simply.

"Ninjas with headbands pulled over their eyes? Yep, sounds like em'." Max said, leaning his gigantic frame against the wall of the building.

"So what'd I miss while I was up on the roof?" Knives asked, walking a little closer to the group.

"There were a few punks back here, but we took care of em'." Skate informed, grinning.

"Turns out, they were hiding some gold bars back here," Blaze frowned, moving slightly aside so that Knives could see the moderate amount clumsily stacked gold bars for herself. "Trying to determine whether they should spend it all on guns or drugs." She added sardonically.

"So what do we do with all this?" Knives asked curiously, picking up a bar and somewhat absently gazing at her reflection.

"We hide it," Blaze frowned decisively, not taking her eyes off the riches.

"We shouldn't, like, return it or anything?" Scott asked, scratching his head.

The brunette bitterly chuckled. "As much as I'd like to, we can't. We walk into a bank with all that gold, we'd all be arrested for sure. Suspected of grand theft. And for us, getting arrested means getting captured. If we end up behind bars, we're gonna stay there. We've been a thorn in X's side for years, and he has this entire city in his pocket—that includes the bank."

She paused, thinking. She suddenly saw a brown sack lying on the ground. "I'll put it in that sack over there, then throw it in the trash."

"Smart thinking," Ramona remarked, watching Blaze collect the bars. "Nobody's gonna look there."

"At least no one's likely to, anyway." That was Blaze. After that was done, the group walked back out of the alleyway with Scott twitching in alarm upon hitting the street.

" _Wait_! Is that money from those guys still out there?! I need to get it before it disappears!" He yelled, darting in the direction from which they'd come to pick up the coins. They were blinking by the time he got to them, a sure sign they were threatening to fade into nothingness, yet Scott's quickness allowed him to successfully collect it before they vanished. He rejoined the rest of them.

"I'm back! Sorry! Had to get some money to put towards Kim's new drums." Scott explained, before switching topics. "Oh, and there was this weird thing I saw when I went back there. Two of those thug dudes were still, like, dead."

"You mean they didn't turn into money?" Knives asked.

"Yeah. The corpses of the guys were just. . .there. The guys that seemed to know Blaze."

" _Weird_. . ." Knives muttered, looking at her feet.

Scott's phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out and looked at the screen with mild curiosity. "Huh. I got an email from a new address. . .weird. . . _nobody_ emails me. . ."

"What's it say?" Ramona asked, looking over his shoulder at his phone. Scott was about to hit 'Open' on his phone when he and Ramona were given a heads-up by Adam.

"More thugs, guys," Adam said, turning around to look past them.

"What? Really?" Scott asked somewhat dazed, stuffing the phone back in his pocket.

"Yeah, Blaze is dealing with one up there. I'm checking if there are any trying to come up from behind us." With a quick scan of the area behind them, Adam turned back to Blaze who had finished her quick scuffle. "We're all clear back here."

"Good," She nodded.

Knives suppressed a shiver born of anxiety. "What we're doing right now is so. . . _gritty_ , so. . . _on edge_. . ." Her features lit up. "I love it! I had no idea what fighting criminals like this could _be_ like! Thanks _SO_ much for letting me come along, Blaze!"

The brunette let out a chuckle. "Hey, it's no problem."

After a bit of more walking, Axel frowned as he pointed at an alleyway, remembering where he'd seen it.

"That's one of those alleyways I saw when we were in that streetcar."

Zan frowned slightly as well. "I'm detecting cellular signals coming it."

"How many?" That was Blaze.

"Only one."

A nod from the brunette. "I'll go see what's going on, then. It could be an innocent person on the phone, but it could just as easily be a Syndicate goon."

Blaze walked up to the alleyway, slowing her walking pace when she approached the edge. She listened, and indeed, it was a thug under the employ of the Syndicate, conversing over the phone with a fellow gang member about a trade. Now having confirmed that she was amongst the enemy, Blaze rounded the corner, taking the goon by surprise with a two-kick combo, sending him to his knees. She reached down with one hand and pulled the goon close by the front of his shirt.

"Couldn't help but overhear," She snarled, having intentionally refrained from ending his life so that she could extract information from him. "Now where is this trade?"

He did not answer at first, merely grinning at Blaze, displaying his ruined smile. The entire front row of his teeth were destroyed from when Blaze's foot crashed into his mouth. Finally he spoke, his voice raspy. " _0, 3, 9, 2._ "

Blaze's fierce expression went puzzled for a second, before she glared at him once again. Knowing she wouldn't get anything that made sense out of him, she brought an elbow down hard on his skull, doing him in. Blaze tossed the punk aside, frustrated, walking out of the alleyway to meet back up to the others.

"So what's up?" Adam asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Apparently, there's a trade going on," Blaze said crossly.

"Sweet. Means we get to crash the party,"

Max said, pounding his fist into his palm. "Where are we headed for this trade?"

"Didn't get that information," Blaze frowned. "All the thug would tell me was 0392. Whatever that's supposed to mean."

" _What_?" Ramona asked quizzically raising her eyebrows slightly.

"That's what I'm saying! It makes no freaking sense!"

"Damn crackheads," Axel growled, pissed off.

"No, he wasn't on drugs," Blaze said, shaking her head. "He couldn't have been. I could tell by how he sounded. He was just one of the stubborn ones, I guess. I knew he wasn't going to tell me any _real_ info, so I killed him." Her expression went determined. "We'll just have to find where this trade is taking place ourselves."

As the group was about to progress, however, the distinctive wail of a police siren could be heard in the distance. Blaze frowned.

"Huh? What was that? That noise?" Scott muttered unintelligently, though it went unheard.

" _Shit_." The brunette cursed. "Cops. We need to hide.

She turned and gazed down the fairly wide alleyway and saw that there was a small dead-end passageway that was wide enough for them all to temporarily hide in. She nodded towards it, noting that the siren got louder. "In there."

They all stood in the passageway as they waited for the cop car to pass. It hadn't turned out as they'd hoped, though, as the cruiser happened to break down right at the outer corner of the alleyway they were in.

" _Crap_!" They all heard a cop snarled, before they heard him irately slap the side of the car. He could be heard getting out and lifted the hood, and inspected the engine. "Thing's broken down!"

"You serious?!" His partner replied with equal frustration.

"Yeah. I'm calling someone to fix this. Hell if I know how to." The first replied, closing the door and getting back in the car. His partner could be heard following suit.

 _You just had to break down right in front of THIS alleyway, didn't you?_ Blaze thought, as she narrowed her eyes, damning their luck. She hoped that they'd be taken care of soon so they could leave. It would allow them to continue looking for the location at which this trade would take place. She deduced that their windows had been left open, because she could hear them begin to make idle conversation, loud and clear.

"Those gangs are at it again, you know," One of them said, his tone indicating that he had absolutely no desire to stop them. "They're plannin' to do some trafficking in that lot down the street."

Blaze's ears pricked up at the mention of the trade once again. Maybe this was bigger than they thought. She continued to listen in. Ramona motioned for Scott to stay quiet by placing a finger to her own lips. Scott actually got the hint, and stayed silent.

"What time?" The other one asked.

"Couple of minutes. The trucks should be leaving soon enough."

The other cop spoke in a tone that let them _hear_ the smile that he wore. He chuckled. "Bring me back something. Some drugs if they've got 'em."

The second cop gave a little laugh. "Gonna have to be careful though. You know that bitch, Blaze Fielding X warned us about? Zack gave the whole Syndicate the heads up that she and her cronies followed us here."

 _So now they know we're here. . ._ Blaze thought to herself, narrowing her eyes. The Syndicate was now aware that they were here. They would have to be more ready, thugs would be crawling out of the woodwork, ready to kill. Blaze also made a mental note to personally get rid of Zack for outing them. The rat. She wondered when he even saw them.

" _Vigilantes_ ," The other cop spat, still in the car and still oblivious that the aforementioned brunette and her cohorts were right around the corner, listening to him. "Punks make me sick. Their noses in our goddamned business."

"And he said they picked up some more of them, too. One of them had a huge sword, one had a hammer, and this little girl they were with had could do some serious jumps apparently."

"Jesus Christ," The cop inserted. "That makes nine of 'em. What, is Fielding trying to gather an army to take down X?"

"Even if she is, it won't matter. From what it seems like, X is onto Fielding and her friends, and if I see them, I'm gonna fill them with hot lead." He muttered angrily. The cops then switched subjects to things regarding their personal lives. Nothing of which interested the group remotely. Scott took the opportunity to urgently tap Blaze three times on the shoulder.

" _We need to stop them_!" Scott whispered. Blaze noticed through the enveloping darkness that Scott had brought The Power of Understanding to bear. She frowned.

" _No, Scott. It's too risky_." Blaze whispered back, cautious of not to make too much noise.

" _What_?!" Scott replied. " _But I saw you sidestep those bullets back there like they were nothing! What's the big deal_?!"

" _It's not their guns I'm concerned about. A pistol is nothing to me. My concern is that those cops won't kill us if they overpower us. They'll see to it that we rot behind bars._ "

After a few seconds passed, Scott sheathed his sword within his chest. " _How can you be so sure, though_?"

" _Trust me, it's something that X would do. The man is smart. He'd want us off the streets where we can't do anything. And he'd keep bending the rules so that our sentence would never be up._ _That's why we need to avoid the cops altogether._ "

As Blaze finished talking, a tow truck had come to give the cops a lift, much to the satisfaction of the group. They darted out of the alleyway and down the street, in search of the trucks, hoping they hadn't missed them.

Fortunately, the trucks that the cops mentioned had only been a few blocks down, and they once again hid in a closeby alleyway, all of them watching as thugs loaded wooden crates into the back of 18-wheelers.

Just made it," Blaze thought aloud before turning to the others and speaking in a somewhat rushed manner. "There are gonna be tons of thugs there at the trading lot by the time those trucks show up. If one of us snuck into one of those trucks to get the drop on them all, it'd make this alot easier. It's a bit risky, so I'll go."

"I'll go with you," Axel said instantly after. He then added: "You never know, you may need a hand. God knows how many of them are there already."

Blaze gave a quick, tiny smile at the offer, nodding her head in acceptance. "Alright then. Axel and I will sneak on. We'll leave our phones on so you can track us, Zan." A nod from the elderly cyborg. With that, Axel and Blaze waited until the time was right to sneak onto one of the trucks. They hid behind the wooden crates, and were fortunately unnoticed as the large steel door was pulled shut behind them after the last crate was loaded. The truck's engine rumbled to life, and slowly at first, pulled off down the streets, toward the lot.

To avoid being discovered, Axel tried to keep as still as possible. It went without saying, but neither of them would utter a single word while in the back of this truck. It would blow their cover for certain. He and Blaze still had to be tracked, though, so they muted their phones rather than shutting them off entirely so that they would still produce a signal for Zan to follow. Axel was sure that the truck was running reds—as the vehicle never seemed to come to a temporary stop. He could also tell that they were obviously speeding—and weaving wildly through traffic. He found himself thanking the fact that he was situated between two crates. That detail alone kept him from sliding this way and that inside the truck as it swerved down roads. A short time later, Axel's ears perked at the sound of a chain of explosions going off at a slightly uneven rate, sounding dulled by their location in relation to where it was happening. He instantly knew that it meant the others had encountered the Storm Bikers, but he knew they'd be able to hold their own. It had been five minutes so far, and with the exception of the truck running over a few potholes, the ride had been largely uneventful.

Finally, the truck had come to a stop. The two warriors knew they'd reached the destination purely by way of instinct, and it was only further proven true by the engine shutting off. Seconds later, the metal door to the back of the truck was thrown open, allowing the two vigilantes a small amount of light provided by a nearby streetlamp. Through it, Axel could partly make out the crouching shape of Blaze Fielding. Though the better portion of her was still enveloped in darkness, he knew her plan: attack the goons as soon as they removed the crate she'd been hiding behind. From the looks of it, she'd caught his gaze, aimed at her, and he nodded, indicating he had a similar idea. As if on cue, the thugs began to unload the boxes, one at a time and at a brisk pace. Just as two thugs each began to lift the crates that Axel and Blaze were crouched behind, both heroes rolled from their hiding places and lashed out at the goons. Once they were down, they leapt out of the truck to be greeted by a slew of punks, the previous two goons' screams of death having readied them for a fight.

" _You. . ._ " A thug spat, flicking his cigarette onto the ground and pushing his weight off the wall he'd been leaning on. The other thugs were preparing to attack as well.

"Yeah. Us." Axel retorted evenly. "Trade's over."

Getting a brief, but somewhat closer look at his surroundings, Axel saw that they were in a spacious lot mostly closed off by buildings that rimmed the area, only having a single entryway for the trucks and people to pass through. It looked as though there had been several kickboxers standing as bodyguards to The Syndicate's thugs in case the gang of whom they'd been doing business with had dared to try anything funny. Said kickboxers were beginning to advance . But that didn't faze Axel in the slightest as he and Blaze immediately threw themselves into the horde of goons and began to oppose them.

And speaking of Blaze, the athletic brunette had once again charged her fists with chi and was driving them into the punks, killing them in single punches while dodging their gunfire and weapon swings. One by one, the thugs fell, standing extremely little chance against Blaze. Even the kickboxers had extreme difficulty blocking Blaze's chi-infused punches. The thugs always gotten the short end of the stick against her, even in their large numbers, and now with her new ability that involved her sending out chi-enhanced punches, she was more of a force to be reckoned with than ever.

"Axel, watch it! There's more coming in!" Blaze shouted, maneuvering herself out of the way of a goon's crowbar swing, and retaliating with a powerful kick to his right temple, killing him. The first wave had been destroyed by the two, but as Blaze said, another crowd of punks belonging to The Syndicate were heaving themselves over the gate that blocked the only entryway between buildings.

"I'm on it! _Come get some_!" Axel bellowed dashing over to a punk armed with an Uzi. He fired, but Axel easily sidestepped the bullets and crouched—

" _GRAND UPPER_!" He shouted, a plume of white hot fire igniting around his hand as he brought it up into a deadly uppercut. While Blaze _had_ torn through half of the punks that had occupied the first wave, Axel had picked off the other half with equal vigor. His fists and feet flew into the chests of thugs and into the raised guards of the kickboxers, until finally, his half had been defeated. It was around this time that Blaze had alerted him to the arrival of the second wave.

Axel put down an unarmed goon with two punches to his face and stomach each, whirling around to catch the next one with a vicious three-kick combo. A goon grabbed him from behind, but Axel simply used his superior strength to throw him off and finish him with a punch to the throat, completely destroying his windpipe. He saw one approach out of his peripheral vision holding a metal baseball bat. The thug swung, but Axel was far too quick, catching the bat on its course to his head, and delivered a savage round kick to his temple, a punch to his ribs, and a downward slicing kick atop the goon's head, fracturing his skull and killing him. The last blow fractured his skull, killing him.

The twosome was about halfway through the second wave when Blaze spotted a female goon with a tire iron creeping towards Axel, who was busy wrapping up his fight with the last remaining cluster of four goons. She didn't know if he'd seen her, but she still wasn't taking chances with her good friend's life.

"Axel! Bitch with a tire iron coming up on your right!" She roared, all the while defending against the kickboxers' bandaged fists and feet as they flew toward her at deadly speed, as well as delivering her own blows.

Axel instantly spun around upon hearing his friend's warning, and sure enough, there had been a goon approaching him from his right. Axel wasn't a person slow to notice things by any means. He'd just been so swamped with the other thugs that she'd practically remained invisible. She lunged for him, slashing down with her makeshift weapon. He neatly dodged the attack and connected a grab, but before Axel could do anything else, the goon escaped and nailed him with a surprisingly fast haymaker. She threw out her fist for another punch, but Axel easily stopped it and drove his knee into her face, having used his other hand to force her head downward to increase the ferocity of the attack. The punk slumped to her knees with a moan, but wasn't dead yet, prompting Axel to capitalize and finish her with a Grand Upper.

Meanwhile, Blaze had been finishing off her last kickboxer, her fists no longer aflame with chi at the moment. The kickboxer had landed several successful hard kicks to her shins and one to her head, but she ignored the pain that came as a result of it, determined not to falter. She retaliated with two punches and a kick to his chest before doing a half-turn and sending a reverse elbow into his face. He could take no more after such an intense series of attacks, and went down.

Axel and Blaze said nothing, instead sharing a grave and knowing look. They'd both acknowledged the two covered potholes inconveniently located in their current area. Knowing that The Syndicate's thugs weren't above using the sewers to hide, the duo knew it was highly probable that there could've been more thugs just beneath the surface, ready to crawl out.

They watched the potholes carefully for several seconds.

"Yo!" They heard Adam shout. He and the rest were running toward them, having found them. Axel turned to give them all an acknowledging nod.

"Ooh! Change!" Scott said quickly upon seeing the mass of coins scattered along the ground, glittering in the dim streetlamps. He rushed to stuff the money in his pocket.

"Sorry. We would've been here sooner if those stupid bikers hadn't gotten in our way. . ." Ramona explained, The Power of Loyalty in her grasp. She paused briefly. "But it looks like you've wrapped things up.

"I wouldn't guarantee it. . ." Blaze remarked, keeping her gaze locked onto the potholes. As if on cue, the pothole covers were thrown from their places, allowing Syndicate thugs to pour out onto the tarmac in considerable numbers. Like cockroaches skittering from a hole in the wall. . .

"Knew there were more of these bastards hiding!" Axel yelled angrily, adopting a Xing Yi Quan stance, wanting to end this already. Blaze felt similarly, igniting her fists with chi.

"Looks like you killed the trade, huh, Missy?" A thug growled, resting a metal bat against his shoulder.

"We're you expecting something different?" Came the brunette's cutting remark. With a short battle cry, she raced toward them, and begin attacking, prompting the others to run and attack as well.

"Then I guess _we'll_ have to kill _you_!" Another thug declared, clashing with the group.

"Heh. _You'll_ be the ones to bite it, losers!" Scott grinned, sending himself leaping forward a great distance toward the enemy, knees thrust out. He devastatingly connected his flying attack, killing a thug instantly. Catching sight of more rapidly approaching goons, he span on the spot, throwing out his leg for a wild kick that connected, sending another thug flying into a wall. Two more approached from Scott's left and right, armed with lead pipes. They would be simultaneously knocked back and killed by a Hurricane Kick as soon as they'd come within a preferred range. From a blind spot, a Yellow Signal tackled Scott to the ground and rolled him onto his back. He managed a decent right hook, but Scott easily waved away the pain and kicked him several feet into the air and thus off of himself before he could get dogpiled. Knowing the goon was still alive, he nailed him with a Shoryuken whilst the Signal was falling back down. While the attack had struck his spinal area, Scott knew that a mere thug couldn't withstand such a move after being kicked as hard as he'd been.

"Street Fighter, _Bitch_!" Scott whooped victoriously, having felt the Signal's spinal column crack under his fist.

Meanwhile, Max found himself in the face of five goons as they quickly advanced toward him. He grinned, remembering his words to Axel on the transit earlier that night.

"This really isn't ever gonna get old," The wrestler said to himself. "Man, do I love it."

" _THUNDER_!" He roared, his hulking body a blur as he did so as he charged into them. His frame unforgivingly (and expectantly) had crushed them all in a single clean sweep, leaving broken corpses in his wake. The wrestler turned to see a kickboxer and two ninjas rush him. He threw out up his arms to guard against their rapid attacks, backfisting them in a single movement in a successful attempt to counter. His opponents recoiled very briefly, and during that time Max moved in for a grab on the kickboxer, and performed a Brain Buster. A type of German Suplex that got its unique name from how much damage it tended to do compared to regular ones. The end result of the attack consisted of blood spraying and an unmoving body. The ninja was in action before Max could guard, assailing him with fast kicks, punches, and chops. He then teleported, disappearing temporarily. The wrestler was now in some pain, but grazed the ninja as he reappeared on his other side with a Knuckle Bomb, causing the ninja to stumble back in a painful daze. Max moved in again, and Bulldogged him. The ninja died in a spray of red, his head crushed.

Knives' current situation wasn't as convenient, however. A thug had her trapped in a one-handed chokehold. To make matters worse, his other burly hand had her wrists pinned behind her, leaving her unable to reach her knives. Beginning to panic, she tried to think quickly. What was a body part that _wasn't_ restricted at the moment? The grip round her neck was preventing her from going anywhere much, and both her hands were bound. She began to sweat bullets, and her heart hammered in her chest, trying to get oxygen to her brain. Suddenly, Knives got an idea, and kicked his leg out from under him, and threw him over her shoulder. Now free and breathing heavily, Knives drew her weapons and swung, the blade effortlessly ripping his throat out. The petite Asian then began to rush more thugs, slashing at chests, knees, and throats. Blood sprayed.

" _POWERUP_!" Zan bellowed in his ragged and synthesized voice as he performed his Electric Reach, the electrical power frying the two thugs alive. He did not dare to rest, as he saw four goons, one wielding an LR-300. The gun toting took aim and fired, but Zan expertly dodged the bullets and was quickly among him. The elderly cyborg called on his rigorous military CQC training and quickly disarmed him before slamming his metal fist into his face, crushing it. He turned to the others, and thought he'd seen one of them stuffing what looked like a radio into his pocket before joining the fight. Nevertheless though, he had ignored it and proceeded to defeat the remaining thugs with single punches.

Soon, every thug had been killed. A short silence swept the area as they waited for more, the only exception being Scott, who was scrambling for the change. When no more did show up, they finally dropped their guards and eased out of their stances. The noiselessness was broken by the ever-youthful and energetic voice of Skate. He spoke between tiny huffs of exhaustion.

"Well, I don't think there's any more of them, guys. Let's check out these trucks, see what would've been traded." He started over to the trucks. The others were about to follow, when there was a noise. . .a somewhat distinct noise. And it was coming from the rooftops above them. It got louder, too, though it was still somewhat hard to decipher what it was from their location in relation to the roofs. They all wore puzzled looks for a split second, before Blaze's eyes widened in realization as to what it was. It dawned on the others, too, barring Scott.

It was a truck.

An 18-wheeler, to be exact.

And it was getting closer to the edge.

" _EVERYONE_! _GET TO A CORNER_!" Zan shouted. They all did so, with the exception of Scott, who remained in his spot, unmoving. He scratched his head in confusion.

"What? Why? What's that noise?"

" _Get_ _OVER here, you idiot_!" Ramona shouted at him. She dragged a still-perplexed Scott back to the safety of the corner area with haste.

Hardly even a full second later, an 18-wheeler drove madly off the edge. He'd been speeding directly down the center of the makeshift road that _was_ the connected series rooftops. If they had stayed where they were, near the top-center, they would've all been surely killed. Zan had instructed them all to get to a corner for that exact reason.

Ramona watched the truck sail downward in awe as she ran to the corner. The truck had overshot its mark of hitting the dead center of the lot, and was instead on a collision course with the wall of a bordering building. The driver would be killed surely. Ramona frowned briefly, yet pensively. Was this just a freak accident, or the work of The Syndicate? And if so, were they _this_ desperate to dispose of them?

None of them expected what happened next. It was as if the driver realized the extremity of his actions, and threw himself out of the vehicle's small window at the last possible second, leaving the truck to smash into the wall and explode in a brilliant ball of fire. Fragments of red brick were sent flying. They all had to shield their faces from the rocky particles, as well as from the blinding light the explosion had created. The event expectantly elicited a ' _Holy crap_!' from Scott and an ' _OH MY GOD_!' from Knives, although both remarks went completely unheard over the thundering sound of the explosion.

They turned to confront the driver, who was no longer regaining his bearings, Blaze taking point. She and the other vigilantes grittily frowned upon recognizing another familiar face. A bearded man with a trucker's hat, muscle shirt, jeans that had a thick strip of red electrical tape around the right knee area, and brown boots.

"Diesel!" Blaze growled, running to take him on.

The Syndicate thug known as Diesel simply snarled, and reached for the wooden baseball bat that he'd nabbed before his leap from the truck, and lashed out with it. Blaze barely managed to shield herself from the attack in time, as Diesel had a quite fast swing. Nevertheless, she managed to catch him with an elbow, before netting several more strong blows immediately afterwards. Standing ready with the others just in case, Adam watched the rather one-sided fight with satisfaction. Blaze really had been getting stronger. And faster for that matter. Diesel in particular was a thug that was alarmingly quick on the draw—even with a long weapon such as a pipe or a 2x4, and Blaze still managed to beat him to the first hit. He smiled to himself. The Syndicate had _no idea_ what it was in for.

Not at all much longer, Blaze had Diesel on the ground, bloodied and beaten—but not dead. She didn't want to kill him just yet. She and her companions needed answers first.

"Now," She started, placing her boot firmly on his chest, her eyes scanning about the lot. As were Adam's, Axel's, Skate's, Zan's and Max's. They'd already started going around and looking. "Before I press you for information, I know someone gave you the go-ahead to drive off that rooftop. Where's the rat hiding?"

Diesel chuckled mockingly, coughing up blood as he did so. When he regained his composure, he grinned red.

"Already took care of 'em, city girl. While you were down here busy fightin', one of our guys knew he was on his way out, and told me to drive off. Guess we just had perfect timing, heh." With those words, Blaze motioned for the five male vigilantes to come back.

 _So that's what that hoodlum was doing with that device. . ._ Zan thought, his mind flashing back to when he saw the thug slip the instrument back into his pocket, the action now making sense to him.

"Tell us what you know about the trade." Axel demanded in a raised voice.

"Don't know what you're talkin' about, boy. They just told me to make sure y'all went up in an explosion. Wasn't told anything about no trade." Diesel insisted hoarsely.

"Bullshit!" Axel was full-on yelling now. "You're no ordinary thug, I know they told you _something_! Talk!"

"My foot's the only thing keeping him from going off on you," Blaze begun in even tones. Her boot was still placed firmly on the goon's chest, but perhaps not for . "Tell us what you know or he'll turn you into a punching bag."

Diesel laughed, deciding to drop the act. He grinned once more at them. "He ain't gonna do that, darling. One more hit and I'm done for."

"I've mastered damn near every martial art there is," Axel said, cracking his neck around. "I can make an almost dead dude talk, even one in a state like yours."

"Yeah! And he can turn you into a punching bag! He's got, like, _magical powers_ —" Scott began with zeal, but was kindly shushed by Ramona, who shook her head hopelessly. Scott's comment Diesel, to eye him questioningly.

"Stupid boy. . ." The thug muttered. Skate felt like Diesel would've facepalmed if he'd been in the condition to do so.

"I'm not stupid, you. . . _hillbilly_!" Scott shot back fiercely, pointing at the thug. Scott was expecting some death threat to come his way, but it never did. He didn't know if it was because he felt like arguing no longer, or if he'd really just not taken offense to it. He saw the bearded thug turn his gaze back toward Blaze.

"We were gonna be tradin' with this one other gang—wasn't gonna give us a name, or anything until the trade was over. It was for weed and coke. The small stuff. It was going straight to the boss, too. There's gonna be a bigger trade in three days at sundown. An all out one. They'll be messin' with bigger drugs, guns, money—hell, even gold. There's also s'posed be more gangs trading with us. Not just one."

Blaze frowned in thought. "Why would X want to trade the small stuff first? He'd likely go straight to the top."

"Hell if I know," Diesel croaked, coughing up more blood. Blaze resumed her thinking. Was he possibly trying to ease into the trust of this other gang and eventually add them to his own forces, like with Neo Chaos?

"Where's this 'bigger trade' even taking place, huh?" Skate demanded fiercely, eyeing the goon with hate.

Diesel was silent for a moment before he muttered: "The abandoned warehouse near 45th street."

"Hey, I know where that is," Ramona spoke up.

"How?" Axel asked.

"Before it got forsaken, I used to make deliveries to it all the time. It's right in the middle of a junkyard in the edge of the city."

"You knew where to find an _abandoned warehouse_?" Scott asked, sounding surprised.

"Yeah. So?"

" _Abandoned_. . ." Scott repeated, a spaced out look written across his face. He suddenly snapped to attention and stared into his girlfriend's eyes intensely. "That means _ghosts_ , right?"

"No, dude. Just because something's been abandoned doesn't mean it's infested with spirits of the dead." Ramona sighed. She then addressed everyone else. "If you guys don't feel like walking the whole way, I know a Subspace Highway that can get us near there. Then we'd just have to walk the rest of the way. It's like, 3-5 minutes, tops."

"Sounds good. We can head to it in three days, get in, and stop that trade." Max said.

"Agreed. I think we're done here." Blaze said, preparing to finish the thug with a Kikoshou.

" _WAIT_!" Scott screamed, putting a hand on the Judoka's shoulder, stopping her. She looked at him questioningly.

"What?"

"Can I do it?" Scott asked innocently, almost in a childlike way. Blaze shrugged and backed away from his body, letting Scott get into position for the kill. He tore The Power of Understanding from his chest and sliced down powerfully, neatly hacking Diesel into two, gory halves. Perfectly down the middle, too. A large info box appeared, its sheer abnormal size prompting everyone to spare a glance at the least.

 **ROUND ONE CLEAR!**

 **Most Kills: Axel**

 **Most Money Collected: Scott**

 **Overall Rank: S+**

"Yes!" Scott cheered, throwing two fists in midair. He donned a huge grin.

 **Scott Pilgrim**

 **Status: F*CK YEAH!**

"Uh, Scott," Adam started in a somewhat deadpan tone. "It says our rank is _S+._ It's pretty much telling us we bombed. Not that I even knew we were being graded. . ."

"Dude, do you even _play_ videogames? An S Rank is _awesome_! We rocked it!" Scott replied jubilantly.

"Yeah. We did." Axel agreed, familiar with the terms, a tiny satisfied smile coming over his features. He had to shake his head at the absurdity of being graded on his performance as if it were an actual videogame, but as a gamer himself, a part of him found it neat that it was even happening.

Adam shook his head for a completely different reason and shrugged. "Whatever you two say."

Max scoffed. "I feel like I'm back in school. Grades and all _would_ know what to make of this whole thing if it's videogame related, Axel." He finished with a perceptible touch of humor in his voice. Skate grinned. Blaze chose not to comment on the info box. Her vision swept across the wreckage.

"Zan, were those buildings clear?" Blaze asked.

"Yes. Fully vacant." Zan answered. Scott let out a long gasp.

"How do you _know_ , though?" Scott asked, astonished. His mouth hung ajar.

"Didn't he say he had sensors or something?" Knives reminded.

"And the lights were out. All of them. I knew this lot was all ours the second we stepped out of that truck." Axel added.

"I did too, but I figured I'd double-check." Blaze clarified.

"How many times do you look before crossing the _street_ , Blaze?" Skate kidded with a smile, referencing her cautious nature. She waved him off affectionately.

"How'd that truck even make such a huge explosion, anyway?" Knives asked. "I thought they just. . .I dunno, _crashed_."

"Crapton of gasoline tanks in the storage compartment. Had to have been it." Adam answer, eying the wreckage.

"Oh." Knives replied, looking as well.

"So. . .what now?" Ramona asked awkwardly.

"That's an easy one. We take it easy for three days, until sundown, that is. The city and fire department will take care of the collateral damage." Blaze answered certainly.

"Well. . .that's actually _not_ all." Knives said, inviting the questioning looks of everyone else. Her voice was small, yet serious and purposeful.

"What do you mean?" Blaze inquired with a slight frown of confusion. Knives took a single step toward Blaze.

"What I mean is," She began, her voice and face still deadly serious. Her eyes locked into Blaze's. "There's something I really need to tell you."

Blaze continued to look to the shorter girl for her answer, which came in the form of a near-lethal hug.

" _THANKYOU SO MUCH FOR LETTING ME COME ALONG_! Tonight was SO awesome! Even the part when I was in that chokehold! I kept thinking, ' _Am I gonna die_?!' But then I kicked his leg out from under him and kicked total ass!" Knives chirped excitedly and rapidly, still squeezing a wincing Blaze in a hug.

" _Unngh_!" The brunette groaned in discomfort. "I appreciate the thanks, Knives—I really do—but could you ease up on me. . .you're cutting off my circulation." Knives, still beaming, released Blaze.

"Might not have been the best idea to crush Blaze to death, there, Knives. Wouldn't want to be a person down, now would we?" Skate cracked, grinning. He and most of the others aiming humored looks their way. With the exception of Zan and Axel, however.

"Well I'm glad to see that you care about my health," Blaze couldn't help but razz lightly. She then turned to Knives, shaking her head with a tiny smile. "And here I thought you had something to say that pertained to the trade."

Knives shook her head, grinning. "Nope! Just wanted to say thanks!"

"And give her a hug that damn near killed her," Adam muttered in an amused manner.

"Oh, Knives!" Scott said nervously, averting his eyes.

* * *

"So I forgot to ask you Scott," Adam started. He and the others were on their way back to get some sleep, for it had been a long night for all of them. As it would turn out, Ramona's apartment wasn't at all that far from the Marriott that the six vigilantes were temporarily residing in, so they decided to walk back together, making light conversation along the way. "What's the story with that whole 'extra life' thing you mentioned earlier."

Scott had a totally lost expression written across his face. "Huh? Wha. . .extra life? Like in videogames?"

"He got an extra life when he beat Todd. Probably due to his overpoweredness of being a Vegan. Basically, he had two lives. Scott used it when Gideon killed him. Then he came back to life and we beat him together." Ramona explained, not even bothering to try to remind Scott. She then began to scold her boyfriend lightly. "You're down to your only life. Don't blow this one while we're out killing criminals."

Zan humphed. "I still have a hard time believing that one could obtain telekinesis simply by practicing veganism. It defies all logic. Possibly moreso than anything else I've seen here."

"But it's true, though!" Scott insisted with wild gestures, having been victim to Todd's telekinetic assaults firsthand. "He used his psychic. . .ness to throw me through a brick wall and into the sky!"

"Holy crap," Skate commented. "The sky? How bad were the injuries when you came back down?"

"Shooot, I was just fine," Scott grinned. "A little dazed, but none of my bones were broken.

"You basically fell from the sky and got no broken bones? You're pretty tough." Axel remarked.

"So are you guys," Ramona pointed out with a smile. "Saving cities and killing gangbangers and all."

" _Gangbangers_. . ." Scott muttered weakly, looking at the ground. The comment had gone unheard however.

"Good point," Axel said, keeping the conversation going. "Guess that means the nine of us'll make a solid team."

"Guess so," Ramona shrugged, obviously feigning nonchalance with a grin aimed at the dojo instructor.

" _Oh my God_!" Scott suddenly shrieked, horrified. "They're gonna have SEX with us?" This caused Max, Skate, Adam, and Knives to burst out laughing. Blaze chuckled to herself.

"Wake up the whole city, why don't you?" Ramona muttered silently, shaking her head.

"She was talking about _street thugs_ , Scott! _God_!" Knives squeaked, in a giggling fit.

"Yeah, X's thugs would much rather beat us down. We'll, they'd rather try to, that is." Max grinned, already looking forward to the trade that they'd crash.

"Anyway, an extra life seems pretty handy. Case you slip up during a fight." Blaze commented. "Think he'll leave behind another one?"

"No idea," Scott shrugged. "But if he does I totally call dibs!"

"Yeah right," Ramona grinned. "You got the last one. That extra life is mine.

"B-but, you took a sword through the heart and lived!" Scott protested. "You're, like, immortal!"

"Jesus," Adam asked, surprised. "for real?"

Ramona nodded proudly. "Yep. Almost did bite it though. But still, aren't I just amazing?" She asked with faux arrogance. Adam kindly scoffed with a smile.

"You're something else, all right," He ran a hand through his straight, spiky hair. "You _and_ Scott for that matter. Just listening to these escapades of yours is wearing me out." He said good-naturedly. "Gonna need some coffee just to hear about how you two met." Ramona laughed.

"You know, you guys could just come down to the Second Cup tomorrow morning. Our friends'll probably be there. Me and Ramona are going too." Scott suggested.

"We are?" Ramona asked. Clearly, this was something he'd just thought of. Sure, she figured some of their friends would be at the Second Cup, but Ramona had no intention of going.

"Uh. . .y-yeah!" Scott briefly stuttered.

"And I work there, too," Knives jumped in, excitedly. "You guys can all have free drinks for your first visit since you're so awesome!"

Skate's face lit up. "Really?"

"Yeah!"

"So are you going to come? Please say you'll come." Scott pleaded Blaze.

"Sure." She smiled.

"And you know I'm in," Skate grinned. "Always up for free coffee."

"Me too," Adam agreed.

"I guess I'll come too," Axel said from where he walked as they rounded a corner.

"Can't. Gotta hit the gym early tomorrow. If we're up against all of Ramona's crazy exes, I gotta keep this body in shape. Next time though." Max promised.

"I'm afraid I won't be joining you either," Zan intoned. His tone was pensive, reflecting that something had been on his mind, and Blaze recognized it.

"We understand, Zan," Blaze said.

"Uh. . .I kinda don't—" Scott started, before being cut off by a swift elbow to the arm by his girlfriend. They walked a bit more of a ways, until finally, Ramona's apartment was in sight. The group collectively stopped in front of the red-bricked building, and Scott pulled out his phone.

"The Second Cup is on Rosemary St." Knives informed, before adding an afterthought. "Well, the one that I work at, anyway."

"Got it." The brunette responded.

"Can I have one of your numbers so I can text you if anything changes?" Scott asked.

"Sure." Blaze said, putting the number into her phone as Scott said it. "Got it. See you guys tomorrow."

" _Yes! Tomorrow! Coffee. . .awesome_!" Scott stammered excitedly. Ramona groaned and smiled tiredly, giving a wave before pulling Scott by the hand through the door.

* * *

 **THE NEXT DAY**

" _—and then there was this huge truck that came crashing down from the rooftops that made a huge explosion and we kicked the crap out of the hillbilly dude and it was awesome_!" Scott retold excitedly to Neil, Wallace, Stills and partly to Kim, who were all seated at a table located within the Second Cup. Ramona just sipped her coffee, shaking her head, amused at Scott's rapid relaying of last night's events and revelations.

"It's true!" Knives co-signed from behind the counter, dressed in her work uniform rather than what Skate had called her 'ninja suit' the previous night.

"Whoa. . ." Neil mumbled, clearly in wonder of what Scott had told them. He, along with Stills and Wallace, had been informed on the vigilantes, their enemies, and their exploits. Ramona and Knives supplied bits and pieces, but Scott wound up giving most of the information. "So you guys are really doing this?"

"Yep," Ramona answered, wrapping an arm around Scott, her hand resting on his upper arm. "We even got a lead on another drug trade. We're making our move in three days."

"Why three days?" Neil wondered, taking a sip from his own drink.

"That's when the trade starts," Ramona replied with a small smile, while Kim simply stared ahead grumpily in her seat, not caring about their findings out on the streets. She really didn't even feel like coming today, in favor of mourning the loss of her drums. It was Scott that had convinced her to come, really.

"Isn't this kind of an outrage though?" Stills inquired, frowning at Scott. "You're just. . .diving into stopping this mafia or whatever, and you don't even have any real training. Knives and Ramona do, but—"

"Relax," Wallace Wells interjected, smirking easily. In his hands was a Heineken, as opposed to the conventional cup of coffee or tea served by the Second Cup. "Scott's defeated seven evil assholes for Ramona, here. I'm sure he'll be fine against a syndicate."

Scott beamed, glad that one of his friends had instant faith in him. " _Thank. You. Wallace_!"

"No problem, guy. Just keep playing those videogames and you're golden." Wallace smirked, swigging from the green bottle. "Oh!" He started excitedly. "I'll have to stop by and make sure you do more push-ups. . .maybe even have you do sit-ups this time!"

Scott laughed with a 'Yeah,', but it was a sort of nervous laugh. This amused Wallace.

"He may not even need to, Wallace," Knives chipped in exuberantly. "He rocked it out there last night! We all did!"

"And I think they'll be fine, really," Neil said smilingly, brought out of his shell somewhat by the news that people that had sounded so cool to him were in town. "Especially since they're teaming up with these extreme superhero guys. Man, they sound awesome. . ."

"They are pretty awesome," Scott agreed, sipping his tea. "You should see them fight! They're crazy!"

Despite that being the second or third time Scott said that, Stills went on to ask another question. "So when do we get to meet them?"

"Hopefully soon," Scott replied, looking at his phone. "Last night, Blaze said that she'd hang out here with us, but I wonder where she is. . .maybe I should text her again."

He went to do just that, but Ramona stopped him by lowering the phone away. "Dude, chill out on the texts. You already sent her, what, like, seven?" She laughed, taking a long sip from her coffee. When she came back up for air, she noticed Neil's mouth was suddenly agape, and his eyes went wide wide. She didn't know it yet, but he was focused on a certain feminine figure behind her that was currently walking outside the window.

"What are you looking at, Neil?" Ramona asked, arching an eyebrow. This prompted the group to turn their focuses toward the window. Scott grinned.

"It's them!"

Seconds later, the door to the establishment opened, and through the entryway stepped Blaze, Axel, Skate, and Adam.

"Hey, guys," Blaze greeted, as did the other vigilantes after she did with 'Hey's' and ''Sup guys'.

"Hey! You're totally here!" Knives chirped.

"Knives!" Skate said, giving a short wave. He grinned and began to joke. "So now you're biting my style, or what?" She was clueless as to what he meant initially, until he partially tipped his snapback, as if to say 'The hat.'. Knives giggled, now noticing their similar headwear, as her uniform had consisted of a black one.

"I guess so!" She laughed.

"Guys, this is Neil—we used to call him Young Neil, Wallace, my former cool gay roommate, and Stephen Stills. He's gay now, too." Scott introduced, pointing to each person as he addressed them. They all waved back in varying manners, with Stills' being brief, Wallace's being friendly, and Neil's being somewhat shy. This was mainly because the latter's gaze was predominantly aimed towards Blaze. The vigilantes all gave slight, but earnest waves in return.

"We told them all about you guys and what we got up to last night," Ramona informed with a smile. "The whole nine yards."

"Ah. I guess our reputation precedes us, then eh?" Adam asked amiably.

"Yep. You're Adam Hunter, and that's your little brother. You guys call him Skate." Stills replied, nodding at Skate. He then gestured to the remaining members of the team. The ones who were present, anyway. "That's Axel Stone, and the chick next to him is Blaze Fielding, the leader of your team. Stopped a nuclear war and everything."

Axel gave a contained smile. "Huh. He really did give you guys the whole run-down." The four moved to sit down, and Kim immediately felt angry, and made no attempt to hide it, narrowing her eyes as Blaze took a seat at the table. God, did she hate that broad. That flawless face. . .it made her furious how she could have such perfect facial features while Kim was stuck with those freckles. Kim's eyes enviously travelled to the athletic brunette's breasts. They were firm, full, and ever-prominent, even when covered by her jackets, as they were now. Kim then sullenly looked down at her own breasts. They were flat by contrast. And those jacked arms. . .what was she? A bodybuilder? Either way. . .it made Kim a little miffed all of a sudden that she didn't have an ounce of visible muscle on her. And Blaze had saved a city and averted a nuclear war to top it off! Goddamn that woman! Why did someone have to be so perfect?!

Kim would never forget that moment last night when they'd been discussing the Exes, talking about Todd and his overpoweredness given to him by his vegan status. Little Miss Flawless having approached an obstacle, legitimately stumped due to something she presumably couldn't overcome with those stupid chi powers Scott mentioned, that ability to sidestep gunfire he'd talked about, or those fighting skills, probably for the first time in her precious little life, too. She was only mad that the one moment of satisfaction had passed. But somehow, the feeling of general anger was lessened by Adam seating himself next to her.

"Morning, Kim," Adam greeted, offering a small smile.

"Hey," The redhead simply replied, still in an overall foul mood between Blaze and the destruction of her drums. Though her angry expression did relax slightly with his greeting.

"So what can I get you guys?" Knives asked cheerily from behind the counter.

"Just a large hazelnut with cream," Axel said laconically.

"I guess I'll take a large lemon tea, Knives," Adam replied.

"Hot or iced?"

"Hot."

"I'll just take a large french vanilla with cream and sugar," Skate said.

"Regular large with cream and sugar," Blaze said as she removed her already unzipped black leather jacket, exposing her muscled, toned, and all the while womanly arms. Neil couldn't help but stare hypnotically at them, as well as occasionally sweep his vision across her tube top clad breasts, and admire her beautiful face. When they eventually did make eye contact, Neil's heart stopped. She wordlessly smiled at him. Causing him to give a nervous smile in return as he sweated profusely. Kim wanted to slap him, her anger at the brunette returning. She sent another death glare Blaze's way. As she was about to lay her jacket across her lap, happened to notice this one, having missed the last one. As soon as the two women locked eyes, Blaze frowned and raised an eyebrow. Kim responded by upping the intensity of her hateful look, but Blaze seemed unaffected, opting to slightly shake her head, roll her eyes, and give a tiny scoff that seemed to say, 'I don't know what problem you have with me, but I'm not playing your games.'

At that moment, Knives arrived with the vigilanties' drinks.

"Here you go! On the house as promised!" Knives said, placing a four-cup carrier that contained their beverages on the table.

"Heh, thanks again for the free drinks, Knives," Skate said, cooling his coffee before taking a sip.

"Ah, don't mention it," She said with a wave, before sitting down at their table herself.

"Shouldn't you be behind the counter?" Axel asked with an amused, yet slight smirk. "What if someone comes in?"

"We're like, the only ones here!" Knives laughed, gesturing to the otherwise empty Second Cup. "And it's not like anyone's gonna know."

Axel was about to reply, when he noticed the beer in Wallace's hands. He frowned in surprise, addressing him. "Is that a Heineken? They carry those here?" He had no intention of drinking himself, but he couldn't help but ask what Wallace was doing with booze in a freaking coffee shop.

"No, Wallace just has a drinking problem," Ramona grinned, taking another sip of her coffee.

"Guilty as charged," He smirked. Adam shook his head bemusedly.

"So we were actually curious about something—did you guys ever have to fight anything other than The Syndicate at any point?"

"Yeah. X hired a group of terrorists back in the Rakushin incident. Called themselves Neo Chaos. We ended up taking them down, but when X came back after that, all the Neo Chaos goons ended up getting brought over to The Syndicate. Max and Adam couldn't help us out with that one though, so it was just Blaze, Skate, Zan and I." Axel spoke.

"Jesus Christ," Stills mumbled. "You guys actually fought terrorists?"

"Yeah," Axel responded in a tone that implied that such things were customary to him, which they had gotten to be. "X's Syndicate was crushed at the time, and he needed pawns."

" _Wooaah_. . ." Neil muttered in shock, momentarily taking his eyes off Blaze to gaze down at the table in pure astonishment.

"What he just said," Wallace said, tipping his bottle in Neil's direction. "You guys get into some serious shit."

"I know. . ." Scott agreed in a distant-sounding tone, staring at the table, possibly in thought, before screaming at the top of his lungs, startling everyone. "OH MY GOD! WE'LL BE FIGHTING TERRORISTS! THIS IS SO TOTALLY INSANE!"

"Yeah. . .it is. . ." Blaze said slowly, slightly rattled by Scott's sudden outburst. She then decided to ask him the same question. "What about you? You ever have to deal with anything besides The League of Evil Exes?"

Scott thought for a second, propping his elbow on the table in concentration. "Mm. . .nope. The Exes were the only thing I remember having to face since I started dating Rammy."

Ramona shook her head at Scott's forgetfulness. "Scott, don't you remember the Winifred Hailey thing at all?"

"Winifred. . .Hailey? Scott mumbled rather unintelligently, scratching his head.

"I remember," Wallace put in. "That was when we were going to the movies and you took forEVER to get something to drink."

"Yep," Ramona sighed. "So anyway, we were walking to the theater when we passed by some posters of her that ended up coming to life and trying to kill Scott. We have reason to believe that Roxy was behind it."

"The half-ninja?" Axel inquired, furrowing as he remembered what he and the other heroes had been told the previous night. "Why?"

"It's a Ninjutsu trick." Wallace answered. "You didn't know? Ramona said you were a Martial Arts practitioner."

"I am," Axel clarified. "I just never knew that Ninjutsu could be used like that."

Adam sipped his drink. "Neither did I. And cloning posters is pretty wild. Especially if you're turning the copies evil. Imagine the type of madness you could cook up with abilities like that. . ."

"Yeah, and Hailey doesn't even have any powers, and the clones of her were still pretty relentless." Ramona said.

"You know, that could've been a much worse situation now that I think about it." Stills mentioned somewhat nonchalantly as he sipped his own drink.

"Huh? How do you figure?" Scott asked, with a lost look in his eyes. "What are we talking about?" Stills groaned tiredly and facepalmed.

"Ramona, did those clones have any powers?" Stills asked.

"Nope. None that they used, anyway. And they each went down in one hit."

"He definitely got off easy, then." Stills responded. "It could've been some crazy movie character with alot more power than Hailey's character in that movie."

"Like who?" Scott wondered curiously.

" _Lucy_." Skate pointed out.

"Jesus," Ramona said, eyes widening in realization. "You're totally right."

"I still don't remember any of this clone stuff. . ." Scott mumbled, looking down at the table.

"Of course you don't, Scott," Stills said, annoyed. "You're kind of a dumbass." Scott shot his friend an indignant look, yet said nothing in his own defense.

"So, what's the story on that new technique you took out those goons with last night?" Axel asked, lightly nudging Blaze. She noticed that he had a tiny, but still there, smile appearing at the corner of his mouth.

"Yeah. In all the excitement, I forgot to ask that, myself." Adam added with a smile. Skate had begun to listen in as well.

Blaze gave a little chuckle. "I guess I was just thinking on the fly, really. Just keeping my chi in my hands and punching rather than sending it outwards and just. . .worked for me, I suppose."

"No kidding," Skate praised. "You sent those fuckers to hell in a nutshell!"

"You gonna call it anything?" Axel asked. Blaze took a thoughtful pause.

"I _have_ been thinking on a name. . ." She briefly stared at her fists under the table before continuing. "I'm calling it. . .the _Hishousouzan Fist_."

 **Blaze named (Unnamed Attack) the Hishousouzan Fist!**

Blaze took a quick glance at the info box that had popped into existence above them. She sighed. "I'm never gonna get used to that."

"You will," Wallace assured, taking a quick swig of his beer. "Scott did say you had chi powers. But no psychic ones. Too bad, too. I'd've taught you how to dry yourself off using your chi."

"That's possible using chi?" Blaze asked, greatly dumbfounded.

"Yep," Wallace smirked jovially. "But only if you've got the psychic skills to back it up."

"And you're psychic?" Axel asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Boyfriend is. Though he did teach me that nifty chi trick. But that's all I know." Wallace smiled.

"So. . .does that make you, like, a vegan in training, or something?" Skate asked, taking a drink from his coffee.

"Oh, he's not vegan, he's psychic for his own reasons." Wallace clarified.

"Oh." That was Skate.

"So, Scott," Stills started, turning his gaze to Scott. "Looks like Shatter Band's little incident last night has given people some inspiration. The bad kind. For you, at least." He finished rather vaguely.

"Uh, could you be any more less specific, Stephen Stills? What does that even mean?" That was Scott.

"What does that mean?" Knives inquired.

Stills addressed Scott. "You know how you and Kim went out during all this crime syndicate madness going on? Well, all of the other bands were too scared to go out and perform until they heard that you guys did. Now they're calling you two out."

"Who?" Scott.

" _The Boys! And Crash!_ " Stills answered, slightly dramatically in tone.

"What?! How did they find out?!" Scott demanded hotly, completely unaware that everyone was looking at him oddly.

"You do know that the whole 'stage event' that occurred had when we met probably wound up on the news, right?" Blaze pointed out.

"Oh. . .I guess?" Scott answered awkwardly.

"You know CBC's going crazy over that, don't you?" Axel asked Blaze rhetorically and insouciantly, drinking from his cup. He just knew there was that one civilian who'd recorded it in hiding.

"Oh definitely." Blaze responded in a similar manner.

Scott frowned, returning to the subject of The Boys! And Crash! "But I still don't get it! How could they just turn on us like that? They helped me against Todd! I thought we were, like, friends!"

"They can still challenge you to a battle of the bands. Friend or not." Ramona reminded.

"They helped you beat Todd? How?" Blaze wondered.

"Their music, man," Scott said wide-eyed." They just make music with their hands! No instruments! Just hands!"

"How does that even work?" Adam inquired.

"It's weird. They wear these gloves and wave their hands around. Apparently, it works through 'willpower and work alone'. They tried to use the vibrations and soundwaves to counter Todd's powers. But even still, he was too strong for them. So they won't be much help to us when we eventually fight him." Ramona explained.

"So we find another way to take him down," Blaze determinedly replied. "But we'll cross that bridge when we get to it."

"Yeah, and I'll totally be ready to take on _The Boys! And Crash!_ Me and Kim both! We'll start practicing first thing when we get back. . ." Scott stopped upon seeing the deadly look that Kim was aiming his way.

" _S-s-sorry. . .heh heh_." Scott chuckled nervously, beginning to sweat, remembering that she currently had no drums to practice with. She considered punching him, but deemed the action unnecessary, instead replying scathingly. . ."

"I hate you, Scott Pilgrim."

* * *

After leaving the Second Cup, Kim trudged along the sidewalk to No-Account Video, her place of work. She'd reapplied shortly after moving back to Toronto, as well as grudgingly moved back in with her former three roommates that she despised. There was no way she was moving back in with Hollie after what she did. Opening the door with a rough shove, Kim stepped in to see Hollie stocking the shelves with DVD's out of a cardboard box.

"You know you're, like, an hour late, right?" Hollie asked after a quick glance over her shoulder at the redhead. Hollie had a bit of a smile plastered on as the words left her mouth.

"Shut up," Kim retorted sharply. "Be grateful i'm even here. I'm in a crappy mood."

" _Tch._ What else is new?" Hollie muttered sarcastically. Kim thought she heard her co-worker say something, but chose not to respond. She was still in a terrible mood over the loss of her drums, and seeing Hollie wasn't helping one bit. She sat down at her computer, and turned it on. The thing was feeling especially sluggish today, so Kim idly toyed with a loose thread on her zip-up jacket while she waited.

Life really sucked sometimes, hell, it sucked all the time for her, it seemed. Just her luck to have a bunch of freaking criminals crash the concert and destroy her drums. Ah, what did it matter, anyway? They sucked.

"Hey. That one guy ever return that movie he owed us?" Hollie asked, continuing to stock the shelves.

"Like it matters," Kim grumbled back, showing minimal interest in the computer screen that had finally chose to display it's login screen. "Who are you even talking about? Scott?"

"What? No," Hollie responded with a frown, shooting a brief glance at Kim. "It was this random dude. Forgot his name. He rented this one movie called _Adam_."

"Adam? That's it? That's the name of the movie?" Kim asked feeling no small amount of irony, having met someone with the same name the previous day.

"Yeah. So?" Hollie frowned slightly. Kim didn't answer, and suppressed the urge to scoff slightly at the coincidence.

"Who's Adam?" Hollie asked, half-caring. Still, she got no answer. Her eyes lit up suddenly.

"New boyfriend?"

Kim shot Hollie a death glare that Hollie seemed indifferent towards.

" **No.** "

"Then who is he?" Hollie asked with a tiny smile, momentarily stopping her work.

"Did I ever tell you that you should die in a fire, Hollie?" Kim growled against the desk. "If you absolutely must know, he's a friend I met yesterday. Just a friend, Hollie."

Hollie scoffed in what was seemingly amusement. It got under Kim's skin for some reason, and she narrowed her eyes at her co-worker.

"What?" The redhead snarled. "I told you, I'm not in the mood for your bullshit."

"Relax, babe!" Hollie laughed mirthfully, despite Kim's intense, demanding stare. The girl was truly lucky to not have turned to stone by this point, even if she was too busy giggling to realize it. "I'm just saying, knowing how your friends can be sometimes. . ."

A small, sour smile found its way upon Kim's lips. Despite the fact that she was in the worst of moods, she wanted to brag to Hollie. Maybe get under her skin a little. She hated her.

"Oh, he's not like my other friends. He's actually not totally lame. He's a vigilante. Stopped a drug trade last night while you were probably screwing my ex-boyfriend." Kim finally replied snidely, prompting an indignant scowl from Hollie.

"You made that up." Hollie declared after a short pause.

"No, really," Kim said languidly, continuing to boast on Adam's behalf, only for the sake of making Hollie angry and/or jealous. She could see that she was making her mad more because of her 'lies', but she'd take what she could get. "He can dodge machine gun fire, he stopped a nuclear war, and even beat up this asshole ninja dude, or whatever."

"And let me guess, you met on some chat room, so you can't introduce me to him in person?" Hollie surmised sardonically.

"Why would I want to do that?" Kim snarked, eliciting a huff from her co-worker. "And no, he actually isn't from here. But he's staying here for a while."

"You're a liar, Kim. Like you'd actually know anyone that cool." She said finally after another short pause. She turned back to her work.

"I honestly don't care if you believe me or not." Kim said, her words tinged with finality.

* * *

Later that day found Adam Hunter taking a leisurely walk in a somewhat-crowded park. He wasn't burning with the desire to fight, like Max, but he oddly found himself restless with nothing major to do for two days. He'd breifly considered training, as he did have The Exes to worry about, but then decided against it in favor of going on a stroll around town. Nothing like relaxing when you had the chance.

He briefly stopped, turning 30 degrees to admire the radiant sunset. It was an impressive blend of reds and violets. Not as good as Wood Oak's sunsets tended to be. At least, not to him. But at the same time, this was likely due to the fact that the best sunsets in his city seemed to grace it on the day that he and his friends destroyed Mr. X, and thus, The Syndicate. And on those nights, knowing that the city could rest easy filled Adam with a feeling of greatness that nothing else could. But still, a sunset was a sunset, and they were always a treat for the eyes. And while he obviously hadn't accomplished his goal by a long shot, this one was no different.

The boxer continued on his way down the cobblestone path, looking for somewhere to rest. He'd been aimlessly wandering for about 30 minutes straight, and he'd be lying if he insisted his legs weren't getting a bit tired. Glancing around, he found a wooden bench, occupied by one other person. They were sitting against the far right, so Adam still had ample room to sit. He seated himself on the bench, frowning slightly upon hearing it creak softly in protest. Adam was by no means an ample-proportioned man—in fact his entire body was well conditioned and made of pure muscle. The bench, as it would seem, was simply either poorly constructed, or wearing down with age.

"Hey," The figure droned shortly after Adam sat down. Adam recognized the voice; it was flat, dry, and feminine.

"Kim?"

The figure turned to face him briefly, revealing herself to indeed be, Kim Pine. She was wearing a black pullover with the hood drawn, completely concealing her face and red hair. From the side, at least. It had been the reason why he hadn't recognized her initially.

"Hey yourself. Didn't recognize you there. Hood and all." Adam clarified. He leaned into a more comfortable position, slinging his arm over the back of the bench's backrest relaxedly. Kim had given no response to his comment, instead opting to silently keep her head cradled in her hands. When she'd faced Adam, he saw that she had a sad expression plastered on, rather than her usual I-could-care-less attitude.

"Sorry about your drums. I guess I can imagine exactly how you must be feeling right now." Adam admitted. Kim still said nothing, yet craned her neck to give him a skeptical look.

Adam smiled gently. "I grow bonsai trees. Been a really good hobby of mine. I'd be pretty pissed too if something happened to them all, especially since the collection's gotten to be pretty big."

He waited to for Kim's response. After a few seconds went by, she slowly nodded, and returned her head to its original angle. She unhurriedly removed her hood and began to speak in a sombre tone. "We were in a band once. . .me, Scott, and Stephen. We called ourselves _Sex Bob-omb_. We kind of sucked. . .but it was fun. Stephen actually left the band, but me and Scott kept on playing as _Shatter Band_."

Adam silently kept his gaze fixed on the redhead, giving her his undivided attention. He could tell that Kim wasn't the type of person that would usually behave this. . .soft when deeply saddened by something. And he felt good that she felt willing to speak to him genuinely at this time, rather than the prickly sarcasm she usually seemed to give.

"But that's going off topic," She said, resuming the conversation. "I was actually into drums way before _Sex Bob-omb_. I've been doing it since high school. It started out with me having to play for the school's orchestra, but me, Scott and this other girl, Lisa Miller formed a band. It went alright. . .until Scott moved to Toronto. We obviously met back up, but still. . ."

Adam nodded understandingly. He listened to the story with no small amount of interest, and a bit of pity as well at the end. He imagined that having a best friend move away couldn't have felt very good, and he wondered if that was what caused her to be so cynical and sour. If so, than Scott clearly meant alot to her.

"Yeah, I bet it can be tough," Adam replied, before beginning to ask follow up questions. "You said Scott moved here? Where'd you guys used to live?"

"Ontario." Kim answered shortly.

"Ah. And the band you had in high school? What was that called?"

" _Sonic & Knuckles_." Kim said, slightly rolling her eyes. Adam let out a brief chuckle.

"I know, stupid name." Kim muttered.

"No, no," Adam said, trying to clear up the confusion. "It's not that. I find it cool that you guys named it after an old videogame."

"Oh. . ." Kim responded believingly, detecting the genuineness in his words. "So you're into videogames? Like Scott?" Kim surmised.

"Me? Nah. I just know that because Skate plays that game alot. He lives with me." Adam clarified. Kim gave a vocal noise of acknowledgement.

"I don't usually say this, like, at all, but you're actually, not totally lame like most of my friends." Kim quietly admitted, looking down at her feet. Adam smiled and laughed imperceptibly softly, but appreciatively at the compliment.

"Well, I'm glad you think so. Tell you what, I'll help out along with Scott in getting the money for your drums. Any money I get for busting skulls'll go towards getting them replaced." Adam declared. Kim looked at Adam, as a slow, small, but honest smile appeared across her freckled features for the first time that day.

"Thanks." She said quietly. Her tone may have been dead-sounding, but Adam knew how much it meant to her.

"Don't mention it. You're not a bad person, yourself, Kim." Adam returned kindly. Kim reclined slightly, crossing one leg over her knee, finally only beginning to relax somewhat, having being given a shimmer of hope that she just might play the drums again. Soon, anyway. The two companions stared into the sunset as the setting sun continued to cast its gentle rays of light upon the now otherwise empty public park.

* * *

Scott lay sprawled out on the couch, letting out a long, bored moan. He grasped the remote, halfheartedly looking at the TV as he repeatedly changed the channel.

" _Nothing's ooooonnnnnn_!" He groaned, shutting his eyes. He tossed the remote onto a nearby coffee table and rolled his body over so that he was face-first into one of the lounge pillows.

"Maybe I should just play _Lollipop Chainsaw_." Scott mumbled to himself into the pillow, which only muffled his voice even further. Before he could get up to do anything, though, he felt a hand place itself between his shoulderblades and shake him in an attempt to gain his attention. He span and looked up, startled, but relaxed as soon as he saw that it was only Ramona. Scott seemed not to notice the deadly serious expression written across her visage.

"O-oh, hey, It's just you. . ." He mumbled, smiling in an almost relieved manner.

"Scott," Ramona began. She took a pause to exhale softly. "I need to tell you something."

Scott began to sweat, only now noticing how serious his girlfriend looked at that moment. Was she going to leave again? Would it be for good this time? Where did he screw up? Their relationship had been going great. He'd been such a good boyfriend. At least he thought so. He stayed true to her, wasn't a jerk, like Gideon. . .what could've been the problem? He had to ask, but the only words that would come out of his mouth were—

"Are you breaking up with me? Please don't say you're breaking up with me." Scott almost pleaded in an overly-panicked voice.

Ramona blinked. "What? No, I'm not breaking up with you." Scott beamed and embraced Ramona joyfully, unable to say anything due to the sheer amount of relief surging through him. Ramona gave a small smile, but said nothing.

"But. . .what'd you want to tell me, then?" Scott asked as he released her.

"That I'm sorry for how I acted the other day." Ramona answered solemnly. Scott was confused.

"What do you mean, Ramona? You haven't done anything."

"I'm talking about that day when Gideon came back. I came in running to you a crying mess. You shouldn't've had to see me like that. Shows how strong I am, huh?" She finished with a bitter chuckle, looking down in resentment of herself.

"Ramona, you _are_ strong. Gideon put your psyche through hell when you were together. He scarred you. What you did the other day. . .was just your way of working things out, y'know?" Scott said, trying to reason with her. His spirits lifted as he saw her look up at him with that 'You know what? You're right.' look.

"Yeah. . .I. . .guess you're right," Ramona said.

"And you can come to me for anything, right? We're in a relationship, it's totally cool for us to be there for eachother. I mean, if it was me, I wouldn't have felt weak if you'd came to my side. You don't have to take on things like that alone. I'll always be beside you." Scott finished, waiting for her response. The courier had created a peaceful-feeling silence with her initial lack of words before she finally spoke. She grinned slightly.

"Thanks, Scott," Ramona remarked earnestly, hugging Scott, who eagerly reciprocated the embrace. Scott was right. She was strong. For other stuff, sure, she could solve her own stress-related problems, but it turned out that Gideon's return was too much at the time. She needed some assistance on figuring out how to tackle it. Luckily, it came in the form of her own boyfriend. ". . .I'll keep that in mind. I will." She then changed subjects. "You notice my hair? It's gotten pretty long." She pointed toward her sandy green hair with her eyes. Her once mid-length hair had stretched down to mid-back level. Scott smiled knowingly, knowing what that meant.

" _Yeah. . ._ " He drawled, before they found themselves locked in a kiss, attached to one another like magnets.

"It's been a little over three weeks, too," She noted, her and Scott separating. "I'm overdue for a hair dyeing."

Scott suddenly perked. "Ooh! Can you dye it brown with a white stripe going across the top end?"

"Odd choice, much?" Ramona said, arching an eyebrow. "Who puts a random white streak along the top end of their hair? It'd make you look like you're prematurely greying, or something."

"What? No! You'll look like Rogue from _X-Men_!" Scott said giddily. Ramona shook her head grinning.

"No. _God_ , you're such a dork."

* * *

 _ **A/N:** **And that's yet another chapter wrapped up, readers!**_

 _ **I really wanted to address the enemy naming code I'll follow for this fanfic. In SoR, there are clones and reskins of enemies for gameplay purposes, as in most beat-em-ups. Enemies like Donovan, Galsia, Goldie, Nora, etc. will only have one appearance, but the archetype enemies will be referred to as their respective archetype. For example, the ninjas usually named "Kusanagi" will be called "Ninjas of the Kusanagi Clan", or simply ninjas. The kickboxers named "Raven" will be referred to as kickboxers. The Hakuyo and Haku-Oh enemies will be addressed as "fighters of the Hakuyo and Haku-Oh" groups respectively. The "Jack" enemies will also be stated as clowns. The bikers named "Storm" will be known as either "Storm Bikers" or simply as bikers. And lastly, the enemies that have the "Gold, Silver, and Bronz" will be called assassins (since that's what they are). And common, new, miscellaneous goons will be called thugs, goons, etc.. Signals, P-Series, Tigers, and Ninjos will keep their names as they are. This code is to make SoR enemy classification easier.**_

 _ **Also worth mentioning is that the new Syndicate thugs in this story (the ones new to the Syndicate that explode into coins when killed) will possess gritty personalities, making them more like SoR characters than SP ones. This is to keep the whole "darkness" thing up regarding The Syndicate.**_

 _ **And for those who were confused by the 'various other unnamed gangs' in this story, that's because in the SoR2 manual, it states that 'gangs roamed the streets', meaning there are other small-time gangs outside of Mr. X's Syndicate. Said gangs will not be given names by me, and will have a very minor role in this story.**_

 _ **Lastly, Max's 'Brain Buster, as it's called, is actually not a traditional Brain Buster. It is a normal suplex, which (like the story says), is given its name presumably due to the sheer amount of damage it inflicts. I guess SEGA got creative while naming the moves for SoR2, and it was a good idea in my opinion—I really liked how they handled the naming of Max's attacks. :)**_

 _ **So I guess we found out why Kim was so mean to Blaze. . .but is there something more to it than just jealousy? And what about that E-mail that Scott was sent? He never did see who it was from. Who would E-MAIL Scott Pilgrim? Hmm. . .**_

 _ **—Stefan422**_


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